


The Culling Games

by Almost_Artistic



Series: The Culling Games [1]
Category: Homestuck, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Ableism, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Body Horror, Crack Pairings, Cronus is a Smarmy Asshole, Cultural Differences, Culturally-Fueled Self-Hate, Damara's Mouth, Domestic Violence, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Fetishized Celebrities, Forced Marriage, Forced Pregnancy, Grief/Mourning, Implied Incest/Clonecest, Karkat Swearing, Kurloz is a Creeper, Lab Sex, Lavender: the smell of authority, Mature!Kankri, Medical Experimentation, Medicinal Drug Use, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Mutant Hate, Original Troll Characters, Over-Sexualized Characters, Quadrant Confusion, Sollux is Not Having a Good Time, Suicidal Thoughts, The power of friendship, and Neither is Anyone Else, conquered earth, crossover (sort of), fancy clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2017-12-27 21:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 61,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Almost_Artistic/pseuds/Almost_Artistic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Karkat Vantas.<br/>Tomorrow is the lottery for the Culling Games<br/>And you are ready.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to GamesAnon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic started as a tiny plot-bunny and has since exploded into a giant, radioactive mutant-bunny-fic of rather large proportions. I'm calling it a crossover because I've borrowed the premise and some elements of setting from The Hunger Games, but I really don't think you need to have read those books to understand this fic. None of the Hunger Games characters will be appearing; just the Homestucks. 
> 
> This is also my first ever posted fic. Thanks to ilex, my lovely beta-reader and RL moirail, who literally held my hand through the posting process. Happy reading, I hope! ^_^

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\--tempestAgent [TA] has logged into chatroom __ It’s That Time Again Already \--

TA:  Um. Is there, anyone out there?

TA:  It’s okay. If not.

TA:  Because I’m used to nobody listening, when I talk.

TA:  Gosh it’s hard to type with no quirks.

TA:  That wasn’t meant to disrespect the forum, by the way. It was just a statement, of a feeling I am having.

TA:  Which is why

TA:  I guess I am here.

TA:  To state feelings.

TA:  Even I guess to empty space.

\--empathicExile [EE] [moderator] has logged into chatroom __It’s That Time Again Already \--

EE:  You aren’t talking to empty space. Please continue.

TA:  Oh, wow. Someone is listening.

EE:  Of course. That’s the point of this forum.

TA:  Um. Thank you Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. Moderator.

EE:  There’s no need to thank me. Please go on when you’re ready.

TA:  It’s just

TA:  well

TA:  I would like to say this, with a little more confidence, but

TA:  I don’t have very much of that, in real life, except for fake confidence

TA:  And I think

TA:  I’m going to be picked tomorrow.

EE:  I wouldn’t presume to tell you that your fear is baseless, but you don’t know for sure yet if you will be selected.

EE:  There is a chance for you to be passed over, just as there is a chance for everyone.

TA:  I know that.

TA:  I just feel

TA:  very afraid, I guess.

EE:  It’s alright to feel afraid.

TA:  It is?

EE:  Of course.

TA:  I have a friend, who I guess is, kind of mean, who always tells me that only weaky weak wigglers are afraid.

EE:  I’d say your friend is probably afraid, too. Fear is a difficult thing for some people to admit.

EE:  But I guarantee you, TA:

EE:  We have all felt fear.

EE:  Most of us have experienced or will experience the same fear you feel now.

EE:  And whatever comfort it may provide

EE:  just know that you are not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to anyone who read! I should have fairly regular updates for a while because yay, backlog. Cheers!


	2. Tributes: Be Chosen

**Be Karkat**

Your name is Karkat Vantas.

Tomorrow is the lottery for the Culling Games.

And you are ready.

 

**Be Kankri**

Twice a sweep, you close all the blinds in your room, curl up in the sopor, and refuse to get out of your recuperacoon until the day is over. Generally speaking, no one bothers you on those days, save Mr. Strider, and it’s his job to monitor you, so you can hardly even call it bothering. He doesn’t talk to you those days, nor does he try to force you to eat. He just stands guard in the corner of your room, quiet and familiar. You used to find his presence frightening. You knew very little back then.

Today is one of your two days. The difference this sweep, though, is that Porrim wakes you mid-evening, her face tangled with emotion under her makeup. She looks politely away while you towel off and holds a robe out for you to wrap yourself in. When you’re dressed, she takes your hand. You let her, but only because you are so tired today.

“Kanny,” she says, and her voice comes out sounding strange. “You need to turn on the T.V.”

“Absolutely not.”

Her hands tighten around yours.

“There’s something you need to see.”

“I don’t need to see any of the trash the Empire insists on putting on television,” you say. “And I certainly have no interest in seeing the lambs go up for slaughter.”

Porrim touches your cheek with her soft, cool hands.

“Please,” she says. “You’ll have to find out at some point.”

You have utterly no idea what she means, but you would do anything for her if she insisted enough, and she knows this. She walks you into your relaxation block still holding your hand, her other hand resting on your back, as if you are fragile, as if you’re as old in your body as you feel in your mind.

You never use the television. They come standard in the Imperial Victors’ Suites, and the maintenance staff simply replaces them without comment when you break them. You’ve since given up trying to get rid of them and instead opt to ignore them.

Mr. Strider drifts into the room behind you. Porrim gives him a look that’s difficult to read; weary, or maybe frightened. Maybe both. She stands behind you while you sit on the sofa. Her hands rest so very lightly on your shoulders, and you wish she wouldn’t touch you so much.

Mr. Strider turns on the television. He doesn’t need to change the channel. They’re all showing the reruns of the lottery. You go out of your way to never see it. You don’t understand Porrim’s insistence.

They’re currently showing the proceedings for your old district. There’s a female Capitol representative wearing a powder-blue power suit standing on a raised platform in the center of the town square. You remember Cronus begging the Empress for this job. You’d asked him, shocked, why he’d want to. He’d never really had an answer for you.

“Gather round, grublings, come on now, don’t be shy,” the representative chirps. She’s flanked on either side by two guards, probably bluebloods, judging by their builds. Hundreds of young trolls and their lusii crowd around the platform, a sea of dark hair and horns in every imaginable shape. When you were a part of that crowd, you were too short to see over anyone else’s head.

“Alright, quiet, everyone, quiet down!”

No one was talking in the first place, so the hush remains. The representative smiles, all bright, pointed teeth. “Alright. Let’s get this underway, shall we?”

More silence meets her query. You wonder if she was honestly expecting cheers. After the quiet hangs for just a little too long to be comfortable, the representative clears her throat and launches into the usual speech.

“As I’m sure you all know, we’re gathered here today to celebrate the two hundred and sixty-eighth session of the Culling Games, a proud tradition of our Empire for the past one hundred and thirty-four sweeps. Now, who can tell me the origin of the Games?”

When no one volunteers, the representative thrusts the microphone under the nose of the troll with the misfortune of standing closest to her.

“How about you, dear? Show off your schoolfeeding for all your friends!”

The boy clears his throat and breathes too loudly into the microphone.

“Uh…there was a rebellion. Ma’am.”

“Yes, yes, very good! A terrible, bloody revolt against the Empress that threatened the peace and welfare of the entire people. And then?”

The boy shuffles his feet, reciting the next part like he memorized it from his schoolfeeding modules, which is probably exactly what he did for this very reason.

“And then the Imperial army struck down the rebels and emerged triumphant, but at great loss of noble life. Ma’am. And so the Empress decreed that henceforth, twice a sweep, one girl and one boy would be selected from each of the treasonous districts and be sent to fight and die as the Empire’s loyal soldiers fought and died, with only one to emerge as the victor.”

The Imperial representative squeals and claps her hands.

“Excellent, excellent, perfectly recited! I foresee straight A’s in your history modules, pupa. Everyone, give this young man a hand!”

The audience claps, the sound dull and forced. It recedes quickly, and the boy backs away into the safety of the crowd, clutching at the ruff of his barkbeast lusus.

The representative returns to her podium, still beaming.

“And now that we’ve had our refreshing little history lesson, it’s time to move on to the main event: the selection of this year’s tributes.” She looks around the audience with a little giggle. “Are there any volunteers?”

They ask this question at every lottery. And at every lottery, no one speaks up.

Which is why you aren’t expecting a small hand at the back of the crowd to fly into the air.

“Me,” says a boy’s voice, hoarse and loud in the silence. “I volunteer.”

The representative looks just as shocked as the audience members. A low murmur starts and spreads, gaining volume as the crowd moves aside to reveal the boy striding forward toward the stage.

He’s ragged and dirty and thin. His eyes are still the colorless gray of early adolescence. His hair sticks up in cowlicks around barely-visible rounded horns. He’s angry-looking and tiny.

He’s yours.

You don’t have to hear his name to know, but the Imperial representative asks for it anyway.

“Karkat,” says the boy. “Karkat Vantas.”

You are very grateful to be sitting down, because the room is moving in strange directions and you can’t follow the tilt. There is no air in your lungs. Dimly, you’re aware of Porrim moving from behind the couch to sit beside you, cool hands on your face again. She’s talking in that soft way that makes you feel young and lost.

“I’m fine,” you manage. “Just fine.”

You glance back at the television in time to watch the boy march up onto the platform to stand next to the startled representative.

“W-well,” she manages after a moment, “I think this is a groundbreaking moment in Games history. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a round of applause for our very first volunteer tribute.”

No one claps. Mouths hang open, heads shake in disbelief, eyes widen, and all the while the boy on the stage glares into the crowd like he hates each and every one of them personally and platonically.

“Kankri,” Mr. Strider says, but you can’t look at him, can’t tear your gaze away from the unhappy child staring straight at you from the television screen. “You don’t have to watch anymore. It’s okay.”

“I’m fine,” you say again.

By the time you get your companions to stop fussing at you, the representative is calling the name of the female tribute.

“Terezi Pyrope!”

And that is the point when you cease to be fine.

You say, “Oh my god.”

You watch all the color drain out of Karkat’s face.

“Where is Miss Terezi Pyrope?” the representative calls.

A girl wielding a cane bats a few onlookers aside.

“Right here, if you’d wait a second for a blind girl.”

Your bloodpusher has gone all wrong in your chest, stopped still one second and booming too fast the next.

Pyrope. _Pyrope_.

The girl looks every bit as much like Latula as Karkat looks like you, and one glance at his horrified face is all you need to know he loves her.

You gave him that. Passed it down to him in your mutated genetics, your affliction, your obsession, your _disease_.

“Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god—”

“Shh. Hush, Kanny, shh, it’s alright—”

“I’m getting his meds.”

“I don’t want them,” you manage, but Mr. Strider ignores you and presses a white tablet into your hand nonetheless. Porrim tries to turn off the television and you stop her, watch Terezi climb the steps up to the stage, her cane _tap-tap-tapping_ in front of her.

You were never supposed to see her descendent. You were never supposed to see _yours_ , never supposed to have one, the odds were supposed to be impossible, the chances too slim, you’re too young, _he’s_ too young, unfair, it’s unjust, it’s—

Terezi reaches for Karkat’s hand, her face set. Karkat takes it.

You get up as quickly as you can without falling over and exit the room.

 

**Be Nepeta**

Your name is Nepeta Leijon, and your ribs are going to break if Equius doesn’t let go of you soon.

 

**Be Equius**

Your name is Equius Zahhak and you are very upset.

You have been selected as a tribute for the Culling Games. This in itself is an honor. You are not upset to have been selected.

You are upset because your moirail has been selected, too.

 

**Be Tavros**

Your name is Tavros Nitram. You have been selected as a tribute for the Culling Games.

So you guess you were right.

 

**Be Vriska**

Your name is Vriska Serket. You have been selected as a tribute for the Culling Games.

And you are going to win this thing.

 

**Be Gamzee**

Your name is Gamzee Makara. You have been selected as a tribute for the Culling Games.

And it is a righteous motherfucking miracle.

 

**Be Terezi**

Your name is Terezi Pyrope. You are listening to the names of the tributes from other districts as the Imperial representative calls out the final list of contenders.

You are still holding Karkat’s hand.

When it begins to shake, you squeeze as hard as you can.

 

**Be Sollux**

Your name is Sollux Captor, and you are currently having something of a nervous breakdown.

You’ve thrown your husktop through your television screen, kicked the coffee table over, cracked the plaster in the walls, and screamed all the noise out of your vocal cords. You have made so much noise that your handler had to ward off the security guards trying to restrain you. Now she’s sitting on the floor with you, holding your head in her lap while you clutch at her tights.

“Babby,” she says, words slurred with the lingering aftereffects of the vodka she’d gotten into earlier. “Babby, s’okay. Jus tell meh whas wrong an’ I’mma try an’ make it all better, ‘kay?”.

Your brain chants exactly what’s wrong _(Nepeta, Equius, Tavros, Vriska, Gamzee, Terezi, Karkat how is it possible how all in one session how how how)_ but you can’t get the words out around your stupid teeth and your stupid lisp and the stupid amounts of snot and drool and crying you’re still doing.

You say something anyway, garbled beyond intelligibility.

“Aw, sweetsie, now y’just sound like me,” Roxy mumbles, patting you between the horns. “Sorry I’mma so dorunk. Drunk so. Fuck it. Drunk. Sorry I am.”

She’s a fucking wreck and has been for the whole half-sweep you’ve known her. In the early days, you’d tried to slip her guard, figuring she’d be too inebriated to notice. But she always noticed somehow, the sneaky bitch. Good thing you like her.

“I know the tributes,” you manage. “Seven of them. How. How does that even—how—”

Roxy makes drunken crooning sounds and keeps patting your head. It’s utterly silly. It’s also sort of comforting.

“Oh shitwads, honey, that is jus—that’s the worst, thas what it is. I dunno how that stuff even goes down like that—oh, oh, I could go get Di-Stri, bet he’d know how it hapned, he’s real good at prolablesity—prodabl—probable—”

“Probability,” you supply, and wipe your nose on your sleeve.

“Thas the one!”

You shake your head.

“Don’t bother him. It doesn’t even matter.”

Roxy sighs—an actual sigh, not that weird thing where she says “siiiign” and means it as a sigh. Her hand stills on your head. You focus on the contours of her hand, the slim curves of her fingers, the hard bump where her wedding band rests against your skull. You know her hands better than the rest of her; she’s touchy, for one thing, and she types even faster than you, for another. You watch her fingers sometimes, on your down days, marveling at their speed.

“Why dontchou tell me ambout them?” she says. “Are they your friens?”

You curl into a more comfortable pose and rest your cheek on her knee.

“I guess,” you say. “Some more than others. One’s kind of a bigoted asshole and another’s just a sociopathic bitch. Worst part is, she’s the one I’d put money on to win. She’s the right kind of cutthroat.”

“Aww, babby. You don know that yet.”

“Terezi could give her a run for her money, maybe,” you go on. You’re starting to shake again. “Oh jesus, I don’t want TZ in there. She’s my friend. She’s—and fuck it, Nepeta can’t—she doesn’t deserve—she’s a good person, an actual sweet, _nice_ person, and Karkat—oh god, KK, what the fuck is he doing, I can’t watch him die, he’s my best friend—”

You lose it again. Roxy scritches you between the horns. As frantic as you are, it’s weird not to be shorting out electronics. But the handy-dandy microchip in your brain has shut off your psionics like a switch, leaving you feeling defenseless and full of buzzing emptiness where you used to be able to wrap your mind around your powers.

“Hush-bye,” Roxy murmurs. She reeks of vodka as she leans down to kiss your cheek. “Poor sad baby.”

You clutch her knees and want Aradia so badly it hurts.

 

**Dirk: Fail to Let Things Go**

It never gets any less weird watching your younger self on camera.

Technically, no one is supposed to have access to the video feeds of the human Games sessions anymore. Technically, all the footage was archived under encrypted lock and key when the Condesce announced the ban on human Games.

Technically, you don’t give a shit and you live with a hacker, so the rules don’t fucking apply to you.

So here you are at nearly midnight, splayed out on the couch with your laptop streaming illegal footage, critiquing a version of yourself from thirteen years ago.

You can see it so clearly now, the moment you should have acted. You catalogue the milliseconds—and it only would have taken milliseconds—but you’d been stupid and shell-shocked and hadn’t seen that the girl with the spear wasn’t aiming for you.

A pair of hands drops over your eyes.

“Don’t watch that,” says Roxy.

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t change anything.”

“It makes me feel better.”

“Bullshit.”

“Maybe.”

Roxy leans over your head and closes the laptop, then walks around the couch to sprawl across your lap. She smiles at you, tired and charming, and you wish for the millionth time that you could love her the way she used to want you to.

“Hi,” she says.

“You look worn out.”

“I am _so_ worn out, Di-Stri, you don’t even know. Can we have friend-sexytimes? That would make me feel better.”

“Nope.”

“Please? I’d let you do it in the butt. Would you have sexytimes with me if I let you do it in the butt?”

You’re smiling in spite of yourself.

“That’s not gonna do it, Rox.”

“I’d wrap up my titties.”

“No.”

“Wear a strap-on?”

You snort.

“ _No_.”

She huffs, defeated.

“Siiiiign. So much for marital perks.”

It occurs to you that she’s not slurring her words.

“You’re sober.”

She groans, leaning her head back against the armrest of the couch.

“Spent the day with Sollux. It’s a sobering experience.”

She says ‘experience’ as ‘exthperienth.’ You arch an eyebrow until she realizes her slip and puts a hand over her mouth, shaking with giggles.

“Oh god, I’m awful! I didn’t mean it be mean! It just happens when I’ve been around him for a long time.”

“Sure, Roxthy, whatever you thay.”

“You’re an ass, Di-Stri.”

“You knew this when you married me.”

Roxy slaps at your chest.

“Pff. I didn’t know shit when I married you, and neither did you.”

You scratch behind her ear and she arches her back like an eager cat. You think it’s kind of a shame that she can’t purr. Not that you hear a whole lot of trolls purring in your line of work. You don’t think you’ve ever heard Kankri do it.

“So,” you say, “how _is_ your lispy little buddy?”

Roxy scowls. It’s not an expression that suits her.

“No bueno,” she says. “He’s been in and out of panic-attack mode all day. Knows a whole bunch of this year’s picks. Poor little guy.”

“Did you actually watch the footage?”

“Nah, I didn’t want him turning on the T.V. and getting upset again.”

“So you haven’t actually seen any of the tributes.”

“Nope.” She squints, always quick to tell when you’re withholding. “What don’t I know?”

“There’s a kid who volunteered this year,” you say. “Name’s Karkat.”

Roxy blinks.

“Is he shithive maggots? Why the fuck would he volunteer?”

“That’s what everyone’s trying to figure out. It’s not the weirdest part, though.”

“How does it get weirder than volunteering for the Games?”

“His last name’s Vantas.”

Roxy goes still, then sits up.

“Wait. Hold that thought. Are you saying—”

“Yeah.”

“Kankri has—holy fuck, Kankri has a _kid_?!”

“A ‘descendent,’ if you want to get troll terminology involved, but yeah, seems so.”

“But—he’s a mutant, what are the fucking odds—”

“Do you actually want me to calculate the odds? Because I probably could. Be kind of fun, actually.”

“You’re so weird, Dirk.”

“I know. Anyway, he’s definitely Kankri’s genes. You oughtta see him; the resemblance is creepy.”

“Aww, bet he’s adorable.” She pauses a moment, then says, “Karkat, Karkat…KK! Sollux kept talking about someone named KK—oh shit, Dirky, I wonder if that’s who he meant, you know, with the funny little name abbreviations he does—”

“Yeah.”

“Aw, fuck. I mean, Sollux talks about the guy like they’re best buds. I have a wispy computer nerd on the verge of a nervous collapse already; that kid doesn’t need to lose another bff-sy.”

“It gets worse.”

“Diiiiiiirk.”

“Have I ever told you about Latula?”

“Kankri’s super-secret lady love? Uh, yeah. Is he still hung up on her?”

“He will always be hung up on her, Rox. Like, forever. Saddest fucking thing.”

“And you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Shut up, darling.”

“Anyway, how does she play into this? Isn’t she—”

“All the troll tributes have to provide genetic material upon being selected for the Games. Do the math.”

She does the math. Her eyes go big.

“Oh hell. Don’t tell me.”

“Yup. Enter Terezi Pyrope.”

“Jesus fuck.”

“Who is also a tribute.”

“Fuck.”

“Who is very clearly Karkat’s flush-crush.”

“ _Fuck_.”

“History is an icky broken record like that.”

Roxy huffs a sigh and leans her head on your chest.

“This is a clusterfuck.”

“No shit.”

She pauses.

“So…how’s Kankri taking it?”

You drape an arm around her shoulders and hug her a little closer to you. She smells so much better when she doesn’t drink herself silly.

“He’s doing his usual ‘I’m quite fine and you should really concern yourself with the more pressing problems of insert-minority-group-here’ stonewalling thing. He’ll talk about anybody’s feelings but his own. You know the routine.”

“Bet he’s sad.”

“I think he’s more freaked out than sad, actually. He kind of lost it when he saw Terezi. Pretty sure he’s in shock over the whole descendent thing, too.”

Roxy curls her knees up and burrows in against your chest.

“It’s scary having babies,” she mumbles, and you press your hand to the back of her head. “Scary enough when you know about them. Different kind of scary when you don’t.”

You run your fingers through her hair. It’s atomic pink this month. Last month’s color was something you affectionately termed eye-bleed tangerine. She’s been bugging you to let her do a dye-job on you again. You gave in to her a few times when you were younger, and you had to admit it was kind of fun seeing people react to a man your size with cotton-candy-pink hair. You’d worn it ironically, of course.

“You wanna go check on the kids?” you ask, and she nods, but doesn’t get up. When she stays quiet, you sigh and jostle her leg. “What?”

“When was the last time they even saw me sober?”

You bite the inside of your cheek and hold in the question, ‘Have they ever seen you sober?’ Your scathing wit won’t fix her drinking problem.

“I dunno,” you say instead.

“I think Rosie hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you.”

“She’s just so—she’s so _distant_. An’ she never wants to talk to me, or hang out—it’s always, ‘No, I can do it on my own, mom’—no, wait, wait, lemme do her voice right: ‘Mother, I wish to maintain my independence, thank you very much.’ At least Dave likes me.”

“Mmm,” you say. You don’t know how to talk about the kids. Sometimes, it’s hard to make yourself recognize that they’re yours. 

“Insightful, Di-Stri.”

You shove her off the couch, gently.

“Go see the kids if you want to go see the kids.”

She turns unnaturally-colored pink eyes on you, though in the dim living room, they’re dulled to a purplish color, like Rose’s. Roxy has never minded wearing proof of the Empress’s lunacy out in the open; you prefer to keep your own government-sanctioned genetic freak- show safely behind your shades. You still don’t know what caste they were trying to assign either of you.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“Nah.”

“Why?”

You stretch your back until your spine pops.

“Because as fun as it is discussing the merits of tentacle porn with Rose, I think it freaks the rest of the kids out. Jade maybe not so much, but she’s a little off.”

“Well…she _is_ Jake’s.”

“True.”

“So you’re really not coming?”

You shake your head.

“I’ve got rounds to do.”

“Leave it to security, Dirk.”

“We are security.”

“We’re handlers. It’s different.”

“Yeah, exactly. So I feel like Kankri might need a little extra handling at the moment.”

Roxy puts her hands on her hips.

“You just wanna go flirt at him.”

“I quit trying long ago.”

“Liar.”

“Maybe he wants company.”

“He wants to be left alone.”

“He likes me.”

“So do Rose and Dave.”

You run your hand through your hair.

“Just…tell ‘em I say hey.”

Roxy’s mouth thins, but she nods.

“Yeah. Sure.”

You ruffle her hair and kiss her forehead.

“Thanks, baby.”

“Whatever,” she says, flouncing to the door. She looks over her shoulder and wiggles her ass at you. “But you owe me freaky butt-sex.”

You whack the offending ass and she goes cackling down the hall.

You wait five minutes to make sure she stays gone before reopening your laptop and pressing play.

 

**Roxy: Interrupt**

The kids are assigned to a special complex near the Imperial Victors’ Village. They each have a private room and bathroom, but they share a massive common area, complete with loads of enviable technology, a full kitchen, recreation area, and private pool. The digs are mad-extravagant for four barely-teens, but you suppose that the Condesce doesn’t mind being nice when she wants something from you.

You tap on the doors that lead into the common area. You know for a fact that at least Dave’s a night-owl, so you’re not terribly worried about nobody being awake.

But much to your surprise, it’s actually John who opens the door. Of all of them, you thought he kept the most normal sleep cycle.

“Uh. Hey, Roxy. What’s up?”

You shrug and try to push past him.

“Just wanted to see what was up with you chickadees, catch up on the latest—okay, John, what gives?”

He’s blocking your path, looking guilty in the way that only John Egbert can look.

“It’s just—now’s not really a good time.”

“Are you guys having a mass wank-party or something?”

Mr. E would probably shoot you a stern look for saying that, but oh god the look on John’s face is just so _worth_ it.

“Oh, wow, gross, no. We were just…um—”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, John,” says Rose’s voice from the direction of the couch. “It’s not as if we’re doing anything lewd. Let her in.”

“Okay,” John mumbles, stepping aside. “Sorry, Roxy.”

You peer around him and into the living room, where there is indeed a tragic lack of lewd behavior going on. In fact, you see nothing out of the ordinary except for the presence of the pretty young troll girl sitting on the couch with Rose, holding a green-mottled handkerchief to her face. You only know her very vaguely as Porrim’s new apprentice.

“Good evening, Roxy,” Rose greets you. “What John was attempting to prevent you from witnessing is this altogether reprehensible display of affection between myself and Miss Maryam. I’m sure you are truly shocked and appalled to discover that I have made such wrongheaded life choices, such as choosing to engage in homosexual behavior and allow my female significant other to come over for late night tea.”

“Rose,” Kanaya says, very softly. “You are not helping.”

You smile because you have no idea what else to do with that girl.

“Great!” you say with false cheer. Then you notice that Kanaya looks awfully upset and feel inappropriate as usual. “Uh…is something the matter?”

It seems to take Kanaya a moment to register that you’re talking to her, but finally she startles and looks up at you. She’s still striking even in tears. If Rose really is into the ladies, she couldn’t have found better eye-candy.

“Oh, I’m—I’m terribly sorry, I’m not sure we’ve even been properly introduced—”

You flop down on the couch beside her.

“Bleh, formalities. I’m Roxy. You’re Kanaya. ‘Nuff said. What’s wrong?”

Before she can answer, Jade marches out of the kitchen carrying a steaming mug of tea and sets it on the coffee table.

“It’s all-natural,” she says. “Grew the herbs and made the blend myself. Good for nerves.”

Kanaya sniffs, delicately, and sips at the brew.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem. You’ve had a rough day.” Only when Jade has finished addressing Kanaya does she turn to you and offer a smile. “Hey, Roxy.”

“Hey, cuteness. Where’s Davey?”

“Behind you,” says a voice behind the couch, and both you and Kanaya jump. Rose just rolls her eyes while John cracks up. Dave doesn’t quite smile when he sees you—he never smiles, not really—but his mouth loosens a little.

He has a fluffy blanket in his hands. You’re pretty sure that was his superman-cape-blanket from when he was four. You make no effort to control the onslaught of warm fuzzies you get when he drapes the blanket over Kanaya’s shoulders.

Then he’s all boy-of-disturbing-super-speed again and standing on the other side of the couch before you can blink. Jade grabs his arm and hauls him unceremoniously into a beanbag chair with her. John hovers at the perimeter of the room, clearly unsure of himself. Finally, he sits down on the floor by the coffee table.

“I must say, I was not anticipating an audience,” Kanaya says.

“If you’d rather not talk with my mother in the room, I can always send her away,” Rose says sweetly.

“No way,” Dave says. “Roxy’s awesome to talk shit with. She says the craziest stuff.”

“Because she’s usually inebriated,” Rose tells Kanaya. You’re beginning to feel uncomfortable.

“But I’m not right now!” you chirp. You forge on in spite of Rose’s dubious look. “So…no crazy stuff from me. But I can leave, if you’d rather…talk to people your own age, I guess.”

Kanaya looks at you again.

“You’re Sollux’s handler, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

Kanaya fiddles with the handle of her teacup.

“Would it be possible for me to see him sometime soon?”

You blink.

“If you’re Sol’s friend, you don’t have to make an appointment to see him. Just drop by. Boy doesn’t get out much unless he has to go somewhere. He could use the company right now, trust me.”

Kanaya’s gaze skitters away across the floor.

“So could I.”

Your stomachache is telling you why she’s upset, and there will just be no escaping the sads for you tonight. You’ll have a drink when you get home. That should help.

“Do you know some of the tributes, too?”

She nods. You take the risk of putting a hand on her shoulder. It’s always a bit chancy, touching a troll you don’t know; you can never tell which ones are going to bite.

“I’m sorry, hon.”

Kanaya’s mouth thins out into a flat line as she tries to contain herself. She has such a careful, precise way of speaking that it makes her next sentence even worse for the clipped clarity of it.

“My friends are going to die, and there is nothing I can do about it.”

“No, no, that’s not true!” John pipes up, leaning across the table to pat her arm. “You’re on the fashion team, right?”

Kanaya nods, seconds from tears.

“Then you have tons of power to help!” John goes on. “The fashion teams have a lot of influence over how much the viewers like a tribute!”

Kanaya blots at her face with the handkerchief.

“I suppose so.”

“Yeah, and Imperial trolls are shallow as shit,” Dave chimes in. “The prettier you make 'em, the more backers your tribute’s bound to get. More backers means better outside support and resources during the Games, which means a better survival rate for your pal.”

“And if you’re not assigned one of your friends, you can always just try to make them really ugly!” Jade says.

“I think,” Rose butts in, “that the trouble is that even if Kanaya were assigned one of her friends, she must still accept that the rest are out of her control.”

Dark looks all around. Everybody gets quiet.

“Only one wins,” Kanaya says.

“Not always,” you say, quietly.

They all look at you, curious. You swallow. You shouldn’t be giving this girl false hope.

“There’s a precedent for more than one victor,” you say anyway. “Two have won before.”

“What?” John asks. “When?”

“In the human Games,” you say. “A long time ago. But if it’s happened once, then maybe it could happen again.”

Kanaya tries on a shaky smile.

“I won’t count on it,” she says, “but thank you.”

“What district are you assigned to?” Rose asks Kanaya.

“District four,” Kanaya says. “I know both the tributes from there.”

John gives her arm a gentle punch.

“See? That’s great! You can help them!”

“Which ones?” you ask, morbidly curious.

Kanaya swallows, clutching the handkerchief so tight you can see the threads threatening to tear.

“Terezi Pyrope,” she says, “and Karkat Vantas.”

 

**Karkat: Have a Little Moment**

You spend most of the train ride to the Capitol throwing up. You weren’t afraid when you volunteered. You weren’t afraid when you walked through the crowd. You weren’t afraid when you got up on the stage. You weren’t afraid until they called Terezi’s name.

You weren’t terrified until you heard the names of all the other tributes.

It was just supposed to be you. It was supposed to be your out. You weren’t supposed to know anyone else.

Now you’re all barfed out, at least, and you lie curled around the gaper in your train compartment’s private bathroom.

Terezi raps on the door.

“You done yet, Crabby?”

“Choke on a pack of rabid weasels,” you call out to her, your voice raw. “I’ll be done when I’ve puked up everything I’ve ever eaten and the majority of my internal organs, thank you very much.”

“Hehe. Gross. Now open up.”

There’s no point in denying her anything. She’ll just say creepy things until you give in. You reach up to the door and manage to flick the lock open. Terezi pokes her head in, alligator grin firmly in place.

“Holy horrorterrors,” she says. “You _reek_ , my adorable little Karcrab.”

“I’ve spent the better part of a day projectile vomiting,” you rasp. “What were you expecting?”

“When was the last time you used an ablution trap?”

“Fucked if I know.”

“You could use the one in here. It’s quite nice.”

You lever yourself up on your hands and knees, groaning as all your muscles protest.

“Nope. Fuck that. I want those Capitol bastards to be able to smell me coming a mile away.”

Terezi smirks.

“Well. No problems there, then.”

“I’ll just crawl out of here so you can use the trap or the gaper or whatever the fuck you wanted in here.”

She does that thing with her mouth that makes it look like a question mark with her dimple as the dot. You go a little fluttery in the chest.

“I wanted to get in here because I was worried about you,” she says, and you go even flutterier in the chest.

“I’m fine,” you say. “Trains just don’t agree with me.”

Terezi crouches down and flicks your tangled bangs off your forehead. You’re sure you are truly a sight to behold. Or…be-smell, you guess.

“Uh-huh. And it wouldn’t be related to nerves, or anything.”

“Fuck no. I am a natural-hatched badass. I am the troll of steel. This shit doesn’t scare me.”

Her face goes all pinched and worried.

“It scares me.”

You would probably hug her if you didn’t smell so awful. And also if you weren’t completely physically awkward around other living beings who aren’t trying to kill you.

“Well. I mean. That’s okay. It’s. It’s probably normal.”

“Karkat.”

She’s using her serious voice. You’ve only heard it a couple of times in your life.

“I don’t want to go in there with you.”

There’s a long pause. It’s plenty of time for your throat to swell shut. You aren’t used to having nothing to say.

Finally, you choke out, “It wasn’t supposed to be you.”

Her hands ball up. She’s not much bigger than you, so her fists look like your fists, small and deceptively harmless.

“You’re an idiot,” she states, marching back into the compartment.

You can always count on Terezi to tell you the truth.

 

**Dave: Be Introspective**

Sometimes—

Sometimes, you think—and you tell yourself not to think it, not to do that thing you do where you get stuck on an idea and then you can’t let it go and it eats and eats at you—you think that your friends are only humoring you. Rose has made so many snide comments by now about your cool façade that you’re beginning to doubt you have any real personality of interest to any of them. Jade is forceful and funny and intelligent. John is overwhelmingly dorky and optimistic, counterbalanced by random bouts of insight. Rose is…well, Rose is Rose; dark-minded and clever beyond any of you, beyond anyone you’ve ever met.

You are cool and ironic. You have no idea what sort of merit either of those things brings to the table. You’re starting to wonder if you even know what those words actually mean.

You don’t know why they bother with you, honestly.

It’s clear that you’re the weak link, both in your friendship and your ultimate goal. You know Bro thinks it. Roxy probably does, too, but she’s too nice to say it. And your friends obviously know, if how often they leave you alone these days is any indication. Sometimes, you think they’re not just trying to leave you alone when they take off, but that they’re trying to leave you behind.

You can’t say you blame them. You’d leave yourself behind, too, if you could.

The problem is that your world is very small. You’ve lived in the Imperial Victors’ Village your whole life, with only a handful of ever-changing Games survivors, Roxy, Bro, John, Rose, and Jade for company. They’re the only family and friends you know, and you can feel them moving around and away from you like currents past a rock in a stream. You’re the rock, and not in a flattering way.

Jade is distant because she has Projects. John is distant because he has a father who actually likes to spend time with him. Rose is distant because she has Kanaya. Roxy is distant because she’s drunk nine times out of every ten that you see her. Bro is distant because he always has been. And in the middle of all their motion and the ever-widening gaps between you, you feel paused, unable to move with any of them except in the most superficial of ways.

Sometimes, when the complex is empty and no amount of bass beat blasting through your headphones will drive out the quiet in your bones, you look over your collection of broken swords and ask yourself, _‘Why not?’_

And sometimes—

Sometimes you begin to think that something might be wrong with you.

*

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\-- annihilationTheurgist [AT] [moderator] has opened a private chat with empathicExile [EE] [moderator] \--

AT:  I am losing my fucking mind.

AT:  I’m serious, EE, I am freaking out here.

AT:  It’s too much it’s too close I can’t do this again why did it have to be this way what am I supposed to do oh god oh sweet jesus I just want my moirail I can’t

EE:  Please try to calm down.

EE:  Take a deep breath.

EE:  Can you do that for me, AT?

AT:  Yeah. I’m taking lots of breaths. Lots and lots and lots and lots and THEY AREN’T HELPING.

EE:  I can’t believe I’m about to type this, but please try to take slightly less. That is _not_ a suggestion to stop breathing.

EE:  Just try to continue doing so more slowly. You will calm down if you can manage that.

AT:  Yeah. Okay. Diaphragmatic breathing techniques. I know those. I’m fine now.

EE:  You aren’t fine. There’s no need to minimize.

AT:  No, okay, you’re right, I’m not fine. I’m fucking sedated and I’m still so not fine.

EE:  Are you alone right now?

AT:  Yeah. My handler had to go.

EE:  I see.

EE:  I confess myself concerned.

AT:  Don’t be.

EE:  Are you having thoughts similar to the ones we’ve discussed in previous conversations?

\-- annihilationTheurgist [AT] [moderator] is idle--

EE:  AT? Please respond.

EE:  If I don’t hear from you in thirty seconds, I will take action.

AT:  I’m still here.

AT:  Sorry.

AT:  You worry too much.

EE:  I know. You are my friend, though. It shouldn’t surprise you that I worry.

AT:  Didn’t know you thought of me that way, EE.

EE:  I

EE:  have very few friends anymore.

EE:  I vowed to take better care of the ones who remain.

AT:  Heh. Nice to be included, I guess.

EE:  You didn’t answer my question.

AT:  …

AT:  Yeah. I thought about it.

AT:  I think about it every day.

AT:  Can you really blame me?

EE:  I’m not here to blame you for anything, least of all your depression.

EE:  I would just rather you weren’t alone when you experience suicidal thoughts.

AT:  I’m talking to you, aren’t I?

EE:  True. That’s a good first step. Thank you for reaching out.

AT:  What, no endless speech about how much I have to live for and how killing myself isn’t worth it and doesn’t solve anything?

EE:  Not tonight, I don’t think. It’s never seemed to help you in the past.

EE:  Besides, you know my feelings on the matter.

AT:  EE…are you okay?

EE:  Of course. What would lead you to believe otherwise?

AT:  Well for one thing, your sentences aren’t two miles long. :P   

EE:  Ah yes, more jokes about my propensity to be longwinded. I am chortling, truly. If only you could hear my rib-cracking laughter.

AT:  Holy shit I love it when you’re sarcastic. You suck at it so hard.

EE:  Really, if you think I’m verbose now, you should have heard me when I was younger.

AT:  Holy shit.

AT:  You know, I think that’s the first time you’ve ever alluded to your younger years. Were you as much of a little old man when you were my age as you are now?

EE:  My friends probably would have said so.

AT:  Hehe. So you were super wordy and mentally elderly. What else were you like?

EE:  Arrogant and with more than a touch of a martyr complex.

AT:  You should really meet this one chick I know. Bet your younger self would look pretty humble by comparison.

EE:  Hmm. I’m not so sure.

EE:  I was also hypocritical.

EE:  And judgmental.

EE:  And selfish.

AT:  Whoa, EE. Give your kid-self a break.

EE:  And thoughtless.

EE:  And unkind.

AT:  We’ve all got flaws, dude. And kids objectively just kind of suck.

EE:  And naïve.

AT:  Wow, man. You are really sad. Come on, spill.

EE:  Nonsense. I’m perfectly fine.

AT: Dude.

AT:  I know you watched the footage.

AT:  There’s no way you’re okay.

EE:  I’m alright.

AT:  I know him, you know.

EE:  ?

AT:  Your descendent.

EE:  You really shouldn’t make such statements online. We could be identified with that information.

AT:  I’ll purge the chat log when we’re through. You worry about enforcing the rules and let me handle the tech.

AT:  As I was saying.

AT:  I know your descendent.

EE:  I see.

AT:  And really, you should be proud.

AT:  Because while he’s a cantankerous little pustule of pure venom and unholy wrath with a mouth that would make a pirate blush, he’s also objectively wonderful.

EE:  You realize that I had nothing to do with any of that. They’re just my genes. I obviously played no part in his upbringing.

AT:  …

AT:  Sure. If you say so.

EE:  What does that mean?

AT: It means never mind.

AT:  But basically

AT:  I guess I should thank you for your highly improbable genetic donation.

AT:  Because it means I got KK out of it. And he’s gotten me through some shit.

EE:  Saying “you’re welcome” feels rather strange here. So I won’t. But I suppose I’m glad he’s been a good friend to you.

AT:  See, but that’s just the thing with KK:

AT:  He’s a good friend to everyone.

AT:  And that’s why I don’t think he’s going to survive the Games.

 


	3. Tributes: Arrive

**Dirk: Intrude**

You aren’t the sort of person to walk on eggshells around anyone, but you have your exceptions. Rose is one of them, if only because your daughter’s cunningness gives you the shivers (and also some warm, fuzzy feelings of pride you try not to admit to). Kankri is another, for very different reasons. It’s not so much that you tiptoe around him—you wouldn’t know how—but you try to be on better behavior in his presence.

He’s one of only two tributes to stay in the Imperial Victors’ Village for more than the usual two sweeps. In that sense, you suppose he’s your only true long-term case. You’re sure he’d love to be sent off to one of the Victors’ Villages outside the Capitol, like the rest of the tributes usually are, but fame comes with many tangled strings attached. Only in Kankri’s case, you’re guessing said strings feel a lot more like piano wires.

You’ve spent over thirteen years with him. In many ways, you’ve grown up together. If anyone had asked you to guess the winner of Session 256, you’d never have picked the pint-sized little swot you had the misfortune of getting assigned to that year. Some days leading up to the Games, you found yourself earnestly wishing for his death, if only to shut him up.

And then he told you in a stuttering, mortified confession that his blood wasn’t on the hemospectrum. And you didn’t really feel sorry for him, exactly, but you could recognize the danger he was in, and it made you think. And the more you thought, the more you saw his endless speeches and his self-aggrandizing blather as defenses. Chainmail woven out of words. And you knew about armor, about using your intellect to keep people out.

And you began to see him differently.

Of course, he came back changed after the Games. They all do. You did.

You think the worst part is that everyone knows what happened to him in the Games. The most gruesome moments are the ones that get televised over and over, get saved for the highlight reels, the playbacks years and years down the road so that they’re never forgotten. The wound doesn’t close. For you, picking at your own mental scabs is self-imposed, but Kankri is the Capitol’s favorite. He will relive the Games again and again and again, whether he chooses to or not.

He’s distant, smart, empathic in ways you cannot manage, still prone to lecturing, on his good days, and endlessly, unfailingly sad, and you understand more than you’re capable of verbalizing.

So you do your best to be respectful. You knock before entering his room, even though you don’t have to. You leave all your weapons outside save the one your position mandates you carry at all times. You say please and thank you (when you remember, anyway), and speak quietly, and try not to swear (not something you’re good at). You don’t touch him unless you absolutely have to. You make sure he takes his pills—two for anxiety, one daily, one as-needed; one for depression; one for sleep; one as-needed for pain. He hates them all because he’s stubborn, but the pain medication he fights the most, will only let you force those down his throat when he wants nothing more than to haze out what happens during the hours you stand guard outside a hotel room door, unable to interfere and pretending you can’t hear what’s going on inside.

He’s usually an early riser, awake long before you come for your morning shift. This morning, though, you knock and no one answers. After a second knock, you fit your key into the lock and let yourself in.

You find him asleep at his desk with his head pillowed on the keyboard of his husktop. You think he’s drooling a little. D’aaaw.

There’s a long-idle chat window open on his husktop screen. Feeling like a snoop, you take a look at it.

 

Error Message ##6941369##

The chat log you are attempting to access is no longer available. It has either been archived or deleted from the forums. We apologize for any inconvenience.

\-- annihilationTheurgist [AT] [moderator] \--

 

Curiouser and curiouser. But enough of being a nosy creep. You crouch down by Kankri’s desk chair and lay a hand on his arm.

As he does every time you wake him, he startles, this time so violently he nearly tips his chair backwards. You catch it and set it back on all four feet again while he stares at you in panicky, half-dazed alarm.

“Easy,” you say. “It’s just me. You know me.”

After a moment, his breathing evens out, his face smoothing back into neutrality.

“Good morning, Mr. Strider.”

Always ‘Mr. Strider,’ no matter how many times you’ve given him the option to call you Dirk.

“Good morning, Mr. Vantas.”

He rubs his sleep-heavy eyes, then closes his husktop.

“Am I supposed to be somewhere?” he mumbles, and you hold in the urge to ruffle his bedhead. Porrim is really the only one who can get away with things like that.

“You don’t have to be,” you tell him. “But I came to tell you that I have to go pick up our tributes. You can come along, if you like.”

He shakes his head, which is exactly what you were expecting. You shouldn’t have woken him. Every year, it’s the same; Kankri wants as little to do with the Games as he can get away with. You understand his reluctance, especially this year. Inevitably, though, he always has to meet with the tributes from his District at some point.

“I’ll wait,” he says. “I’d rather not see them until I absolutely have to.”

You nod.

“Of course.”

You straighten, then get him his pills and keep careful watch while he takes them.

After he’s finished, you ask, “What if he wants to meet you?”

Kankri blinks up at you in blatant confusion.

“Pardon?”

“Your descendent. Having a living ancestor is a pretty big thing for a troll, right? So, what if he wants to meet you?”

Kankri waves a dismissive hand.

“I’m sure he doesn’t even know who I am.”

You give him a doubtful look. Kankri might be a little oblivious at times, but he’s well-aware of how insanely famous he is.

“Is that Kankri-speak for ‘tough noogies, kid’?”

He quirks an eyebrow at you, then sighs, shaking his head.

“I confess I still have difficulty understanding human colloquialisms.”

“Never mind. You should get back in the ‘cupe. Sleeping on a desk all night can’t have been comfortable.”

He nods, absent, distracted, and stands up. Then he pauses, giving you an unreadable look.

“You must think I’m cold, not wanting to see them,” he murmurs. He turns back around, as if that’s just going to be the end of that conversation. You’re having none of it.

“There’s a fine line between being cold and needing to protect yourself. I get it.”

He pauses a moment before he says, “I suppose you would.”

You’ve told very few people about how Dave and Rose came to be. You certainly haven’t told Kankri. But you don’t have to. He would have been alive to see the news reels in the aftermath of your Games session.

“You’ll have to see them at pre-Game events,” you say. “And you’ll have the usual Q and A interview with each of them. Outside of that, though, I’ll make sure your paths don’t cross.”

He nods. You can’t tell if there’s any relief in it or not.

“Thank you, Mr. Strider.”

“Sure. Now get some real sleep.”

You always worry about leaving him alone when he gets like this, so you instruct the security guard to check on him every couple of hours. It’s been a long time since Kankri’s tried to hurt himself, but you can never be sure. You’re just glad he was never as bad as Roxy’s current charge; apparently, Sollux spent two straight weeks trying to off himself when he got to the Capitol.

You meet your partner in crime outside your front door. She’s dyed her hair blue with wide stripes of orange for today’s pickup.

“Holy shit,” you say. “My eyes. My eyes, Rolol. You can’t see it, but they’re color-sploding behind the shades.”

Roxy fluffs her new hairdo, beaming.

“Hey, I’m just trying to support my tribs,” she says. “I didn’t really wanna do brown, though, so I figured orange was close enough.”

“It’s heinous.”

“The word you want is ‘awesome,’ Di-Stri.”

“Nope. I stand by heinous.”

She links arms with you and smiles, all forced, false cheer.

“Well then,” she says. “Shall we?”

**Terezi: Arrive**

You obviously can’t see the views of the Capitol as the train begins passing through it, and you can’t smell well enough through the window, so you ask Karkat to describe the scenery for you. This has proven to be less than enlightening about the actual layout of the Imperial city, but by far more entertaining.

“…and hey, real shocker here, _another_ huge, ostentatious building! Running parallel to Wealthy Douchebagland Avenue, we have Entitled Snobbery Boulevard, home of, you guessed it: _yet more_ big-ass glittery buildings! Seriously, does the Condesce hire architects based on how well they can design their skyscrapers to look like gems? I bet she throws out resumes if they don’t provide links to their Blingee accounts.”

You haven’t stopped laughing for nearly five solid minutes. Karkat ranting means that things are normal. Karkat ranting also means that things are funny.

“And there’s a monument or something that looks like a giant human dong,” he goes on.

“How would you know what a human dong looks like?” you ask between sniggers.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s not like I’ve ever looked at human porn, if that’s what you’re implying. I’ve just heard stuff. People always say that something looks like a human dong—or, uh…phallic, that’s the word they use—they say it looks phallic—nope, I like human dong better—if it’s pointy and sticking up in some way. So I just sort of picture all human genitalia looking like pointy, sticking-up things, which lends itself to some terrifying imagery, let me just tell you.”

You have to double over and snort into your knees. You’re pretty sure the guards outside your door must think you’ve lost your mind.

“Okay, we seriously just passed a mansion with a balcony railing made out of tridents. I’m not even shitting you about that. Think they get off to the Empress’s picture every night?”

You can’t remember the last time you laughed so hard. It occurs to you that this is the longest you’ve seen Karkat in sweeps and that you’ve missed him.

You blurt out just that, and then immediately feel stupid. You can smell the rush of unnatural color to his face. It’s cute, really, how easy it is to embarrass him.

“I missed you too, TZ,” he says after a minute, and you’re proud. Karkat generally handles feelings one of two ways: imploding, or exploding. Either reaction tends to involve a violent diatribe.

“So where have you been all these sweeps?” you ask. “I never saw much of you after…well. After all that stuff went down.”

Stillness is a peculiar thing to sense, especially from Karkat. You’ve learned to judge all sorts of different motion-stops, to be able to read body language without seeing it. This stillness means nothing good; he doesn’t want to tell you, or he doesn’t want to think about it, or maybe both.

“Train station,” he says at last, and you quirk your mouth in confusion.

“You were…at a train station?”

“What? No, idiot. We’re pulling into the train station.”

You sit up in your seat and press your nose against the window, trying to get a whiff. Just beyond the smell of fingerprint-smeared glass, you catch a whiff of electricity and motion. The train whistle startles you. Karkat’s hand on your knee startles you more.

“You okay?” he asks, and the sweetness of it makes some part of you wither up and die for what you’ll have to do to each other. You force a smile.

“Fine, Karcrab. Just smellsory overload.”

“That’s not a word.”

“Oh, my precious little grubkin, it is _so_ a word.”

“Lies.”

“Hey! My line! Objection!”

“Overruled. His Honorable Tyranny is not impressed by Miss Pyrope’s objection and is quite frankly disgusted with her misuse of language to serve her own impairment.”

You grin, wide and wicked.

“Karkat,” you say, “you’re RP-ing.”

You hear the smack of his palm hitting his forehead.

“Nepeta would be so proud,” you add. He groans.

“Oh god. _Nepeta_.”

No more grin for you. You reach across the compartment and pat the place where you approximate his shoulder to be.

“Just don’t think about it.”

“How can I not think about it?”

You don’t have an answer for that.

You’re spared needing one when the train stops moving and you’re both hustled out onto the platform by the ever-present security guards.

“Your handler will take it from here,” is the only explanation you get as you’re deposited in front of someone who smells very tall, very strong, and very not-like-a-troll. You can only imagine that means he’s human. You’ve never met a real, live human before. It is kind of exciting!

“What the actual fuck,” says Karkat.

You smile your most frightening alligator smile up at your new captor.

“Pleased to sniff your acquaintance, sir. Might you allow a poor blind girl to lick you so that I might get a better mental image of your no-doubt godlike visage?”

Said new captor doesn’t miss a beat.

“Sure.”

You can feel the air around you shift as he leans down to let you slobber all over his cheek. You were sure to show him your teeth when you smiled. So he is either very stupid or very confident that there is absolutely nothing you can actually do to harm him. With a sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach, you begin to think it’s the latter. You’re sure to get extra drool on his face just for good measure.

“Well,” he says, straightening back up. “That was one of the weirder first encounters I’ve had with a trib. Congratulations, Little Miss, you’ve made an impression.”

“Terezi Pyrope,” you say, and hold out your hand. The hand that closes around yours is much bigger and much warmer than your own. His grip is firm, but not crushing.

He lets go, and the direction of his voice changes to address Karkat.

“And you must be Vantas junior.”

“Who the fuck else?”

“And downright charming you are.”

“Suck my bulge, asswipe.”

The human snorts.

“The press is gonna just eat you up, kid,” he says. “Okay, munchkins. Here’s the deal: my name is Dirk Strider. You can call me Mr. Strider, Dirk, Bro, whatever, I don’t care. I’ll be your official handler for the duration of the Games. That means I’ll escort you where you need to go, manage your schedules, your press conferences, your media tactics, and your training. We can discuss details later. Let’s get a couple of things out of the way first. Item one: I don’t give a shit what your caste is. Don’t push the issue. Item two: I don’t pick favorites. Item three: outside of your fashion team, I am the best asset you have here. I’ve been doing this a long time and I know my shit, so listen to what I tell you. Clear?”

You aren’t sure how you feel about this Dirk Strider. You suppose your opinion on the subject doesn’t really matter.

“Crystal,” you say. Karkat growls by way of response.

“Perfect,” Dirk says. “Follow me and stay close. Try to run off and you _will_ get a belly full of taser.”

You don’t need any help navigating through the station, but Karkat insists on holding your arm to guide you. You let him do it, if only to make him feel better.

Dirk herds you into the back of what you quickly deduce to be a limousine. He climbs in after you and gives a short set of instructions to the driver. Karkat sits close to you. You realize belatedly that he’s still holding your arm.

Across from you, the leather squeaks as Dirk leans forward. You can smell the white of his teeth as he grins. It does not feel altogether friendly.

“So,” he says. “How long have you two been flushed for each other?”

 

**Sollux: Hate Everything (Platonically)**

At Roxy’s insistence, you’re trying to waylay your anxiety by sitting on a bench in the decadent gardens in the central courtyard of the Victors’ Village. The beauty of nature is supposed to help calm you.

The beauty of nature is not doing shit for you.

You are not the sort of guy who gets excited by nature. That was way more Aradia’s thing. Bitterly, you think she would have liked it here.

But the beauty of nature is not your thing and has never been your thing and is doing nothing to distract you from the fact that your friends will arrive in the city in a number of hours and there is not one goddamn thing you can do to help them.

Someone twirls a finger in one of your cowlicks. You whip around to see Damara smirking down at you. All she’s wearing is a large T-shirt and knee-socks, masses of dark hair loose around her shoulders. She looks like she just got done pailing someone. Knowing Damara, she probably did. You’re sure anyone else would find her irresistible.

“How many times,” you say through your teeth, “do I have to tell you to stay the fuck away from me?”

She flops down on the bench beside you, legs spread. You refuse to look at her.

“Too tense,” she says. “Sol-boy so uptight. I fix that. I know how.”

She walks her fingers up your thigh. You shove her hand away.

“Get lost, you fucking nutbag.”

“You like.”

“No, you psycho, I do _not_ like.”

“You like,” she insists, and the playfulness, the coy charm, is so close to Aradia you think you might die of this woman’s proximity. If you had your psionics at your disposal, you’d blast her across the courtyard just to get her away from you.

“Go away, Damara.”

“ _You_ go way.”

“Do you have the first fucking clue what I’m even saying?”

“Talk too much. Fuck too little. I fix it.”

“Trust me, you’re not capable of fixing anything. If you were, I sure as shit hope your own thinkpan would be your first priority.”

Damara scoots closer. She’s not that much bigger than you in spite of the fact that she’s an adult. She’s so off-puttingly lovely that you wouldn’t know to fear her had you not watched the reruns of her Games session.

“I do what you want,” she whispers, her voice going dark and husky. “No charge for you. You do whatever you want to me. You like that. I know you like that.”

“No thanks.”

She climbs into your lap, straddling you. You lean back against the bench as far as you can.

“You like me,” she says, trailing a finger down your chest. “Poor lonely sad. I make it go away. Fuck is freedom. No more sad. No more lonely. Just fuck. All there is in this stupid world. Past gone. No future. All each one of us just ground-food at the end, then nothing. So do the fucking, why not? Pass time until the nothing.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Damara grins, cruel like Aradia never looked.

“I let you hold me,” she says. “Nice safe good. I pap your cheek. I let you call me her name.”

You shove her so hard she lands four feet away on the ground.

“Get. Away. From. Me.”

Then she’s up again, snarling. She runs at you, claws aimed at your face, but pulls up short when a fist tangles in her hair.

“Yo, crazy. Ain’t you got somefin better to do than try to sex up Lispy von Nerdling?”

Damara tries to pull free of the grip on her hair, but all she manages is to turn her head and bare her teeth at the woman holding her in place.

You’ve seen Meenah only a handful of times. You swear her braids get longer on each occasion. She’s flanked by Cronus, Eridan, and Feferi, the latter of which you’ve seen more than a handful of times, and the former of which you try to stay the fuck away from at all costs. You sincerely wish that none of them were here at the moment.

“Cunt!” Damara screeches at Meenah. “Bitch whore maggot fucker!”

“Shit, clam your fabulous tits, Megido. Why donchou jus’ go find somebody else to fuck? Y’know, like somebody who actually _wants_ your skanky ass.”

Damara lets out a wordless growl, low in her throat.

“Come on, Meenah, I don’t think that’s really fair,” Cronus says, oiling up behind Damara and slipping an arm around her waist. “She’s not a skank. Are ya, D? She just can’t help it. Rustblood, and all.”

“Pssh. Whatever,” Meenah grumbles, but she lets go of Damara’s hair. Damara puts on a disarming smile, turning in the circle of Cronus’s arm to press against his chest.

“You big man? My big savior? Mr. Nice Guy?”

Cronus grins in a way that he thinks probably makes him look charming.

“Yeah, sure, sweetcheeks. Whatever you say.”

Damara slaps both hands against his chest hard enough to make him stumble.

“Lying shithead! Like I need fucking knight with shiny armor from you! Manwhore fucking oinkbeast fucker bastard! No fuck for you, grubfucker! Rot in fuckhole shit-soup!”

Eridan snorts. Damara beams at him.

“See? He think funny. Like him better. Hey prince-boy, you want fuck?”

Eridan’s eyes go comically huge. He opens his mouth, at which point Feferi grabs his arm, hard, and chirps, “No, he doesn’t!”

It’s your turn to snort.

“Beat it, Megido,” Meenah says.

With another guttural snarl, Damara stalks out of the gardens, very deliberately mauling a rosebush on her way out.

“You cool, Lispy?” Meenah asks.

“Sure,” you say. “Whatever. Don’t call me Lispy.”

Meenah shows off her pointed fangs when she grins.

“Sure thing, Lispy.”

“Fuck you. Do you want something from me?”

“Hell yeah,” Meenah says. She sprawls out on the bench where Damara was. Cronus follows her, stands too close on your other side because there’s no room to sit. Eridan and Feferi keep their distance, like they’re ashamed to be seen in public with these two.

“Okay. Then what is it?”

“Got a question.”

“And?”

“See, me an’ Cro do a little bettin’ pool every year on the new tribs, and we was jus’ wonderin’, sea-in as you know some of ‘em an’ all, maybe you can kelp us out. Who d’you think we oughtta put our money on?”

You stare at her. Then you stare at Cronus. And you want more than anything to kill them.

Instead, you stand up.

“I think you should put your money on ‘take your trident and go fuck yourself with it.’”

You walk out of the gardens and lock yourself up in your respite block, because fuck seadwellers, fuck Damara, and fuck the beauty of nature, that’s why.

 

**Karkat: Reunite**

The limo ride takes maybe fifteen minutes, but you’re prepared to throw yourself out the window by the time the stupidly decadent car pulls up to the—no surprise here—glittering complex where you’ll be hosted up until the Games begin.

You’re more than thrilled to be taken away from Dirk motherfucking Strider with his prying questions and his fucking miserable tactics and his stupid pointy eyewear. You are less than thrilled to be taken away from Terezi when it’s time to get all dolled up for your grand entrance into the public eye.

Security has to pry you apart (well, okay, you more than her) and physically drag you through the halls to a room that looks four parts sauna and one part torture chamber. There are tables and tools lining the walls that serve you-don’t-even-want-to-know what function. There’s a swimming-pool-sized sunken trap already filled with steaming water. There are hundreds of bottles in all sorts of shapes and colors lining the trap’s edge, the shelves on the walls, the stands by the tables. You can’t help but gape a little.

One of the security guards laughs at your expression. It’s not a nice laugh.

“Yeah, by the smell of you, you’ve never prob’ly seen an ablution block before.”

“And by the smell of you, you spend almost all your time in one,” you snap. “What is that fragrance you’re wearing? Lavender? Truly the smell of authority.”

The guard wrenches you around and cuffs you across the side of the head. And he’s a blueblood, so…ow. He doesn’t aim for your face, though. You guess maybe that’s against regulations. You snarl. For just a moment, both guards look taken aback; you’ve spent sweeps perfecting your don’t-fuck-with-me growl, and it’s pretty damn impressive, if you do say so yourself. Vaguely, you hope Terezi isn’t pulling any bullshit; the guards who escorted her away were female. You would _not_ want to fuck with them.

Your snarl has them stunned for about five seconds. Then the non-lavender-scented guard grabs you by the hair, and your growl cuts off on a yelp.

“Think we’re scared of some nubby-horned mutie grub? Get in the trap, pupa.”

When you struggle, he picks you up and drops you into the water, holding you under for just a few moments longer than you can comfortably hold your breath. Just as you’re starting to see black around the edges of your vision, the guards haul you out again and deposit you on the floor. The room feels a lot colder than it did when you first walked in. Probably because you’re sopping wet now.

“Come on. Get those rags off.”

You’re too busy catching your breath to bother. Because fuck those guys.

And then Lavender makes the mistake of trying to wrestle your shirt off over your head.

You flip into what Gamzee used to call, “Full-on-psycho-hurricane-mode.”

You sink your teeth into Lavender’s arm, puncturing straight through the fabric of his uniform sleeve. Lavender shrieks, and you’re glad you underwent the shudder-inducing process of filing your useless, blunt little teeth into sharp points. You get clobbered in the side of the head but you hang on, kicking out with both legs and hoping you hit something. Judging by the grunt, you do. The second guard tries to grab one of your horns to drag you back, but they’re too small for him to get a good grip on.

So he takes something sharp out of his pocket and slashes at one of them, instead.

Your senses go haywire. The room’s shape warps, your vision goes runny, and you lose any idea of where you are in the space around you. At some point you must wind up back underwater, because you suck a big gulp of it in through your nose and mouth and when you start coming back to yourself you’re doing some weird combination of choking and screaming.

From the doorway, a girl says, “What in the world is going on in here?”

You think you know that voice, but your nerve-endings still feel shot through with electricity, your senses blunted.

“He was resisting, Miss.”

“Yeah, like a bath would kill him.”

“See what he did to my arm? Wouldn’t recommend being alone with this one. We’re more than happy to—”

“I don’t particularly care what he did to your arm. Out, both of you.”

You hear heavy footsteps shuffling out of the room. The door closes. Smaller footsteps move very quickly in your direction, and then your sense of space goes funny again as you’re turned over and half-lifted. Cool fingers wipe your dripping bangs out of your face.

“Karkat,” the girl says. “Oh, good heavens, you’re a mess.”

You throw yourself at her and cling. Her arms loop around you, slim and strong as cable wires.

“Shh. It’s alright. You’re alright.”

“Please tell me—tell me—you’re Kanaya—tell me—I’m not crazy—”

“Shh, shh, you’re not crazy. It’s me.”

You wheeze into her shoulder and manage not to cry. Slowly, your senses come back into focus, and the all-over nerve pain recedes to a dull ache radiating from the center of your notched horn down into your skull.

When you can see again, the first thing you notice about Kanaya is the ornateness of her dress, pale green silk with delicate embroidered flowers twining together in graceful loops. You try to push yourself away from her.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Was I squeezing too tight?”

“Don’t want to ruin your dress.”

And then you finally see her face, a little slimmer than you remember from when you were four, but still every bit as pretty. She’s smiling at you, brows quirked. The look is fond, if not slightly bewildered.

“Two sweeps,” she says. “Two sweeps since I last saw you and you’re worried about my _dress_?”

“It’s a very nice dress,” you mumble before she swoops down on you again.

“Damn the dress, Karkat. I have others.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.”

After another hard squeeze, she holds you out at arm’s length, looking your over. Her green-painted lips curl further downwards the longer she scrutinizes.

“I know, I know, you’re deeply devastated that I didn’t grow up pretty.”

Kanaya swats your arm.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re precious.”

“Oh good. Just what every male troll wants to be: precious.”

“Hush. It’ll work in your favor.”

“Are you going to put bows in my hair? Please tell me you’re not going to put bows in my hair.”

“Ah, how did you guess my master plan?”

“You always liked frou-frou things.”

“ _Color_ is not a frou-frou thing, Karkat.”

In a fit of giddy childishness, you stick your tongue out at her. You’re more delighted than you’d care to admit that she returns the gesture, then smiles as if to say ‘See, I didn’t mean it, we’re still friends.’ Kanaya was never very good at insincerity. You’re glad to see that nothing’s changed.

“Much as I’d like nothing more than to sit here and debate the finer points of fashion with you, I’m afraid we _are_ on a schedule,” she says. She gets to her feet and helps you to yours. “And you do desperately need a bath. So. Chop-chop.”

You stare at her.

“You…aren’t actually planning to see me naked, are you?”

Kanaya puts her hands on her hips.

“Karkat Vantas, do you realize how many naked trolls of varying ages and levels of physical fitness I’ve seen since I began my apprenticeship? Very many, that’s how many. I am immune to the nude troll form by this point. Seeing your skinny carcass sans clothing is going to be half my job in all this, so you’d better get used to it now.”

Your jaw hangs open.

“Why, oh gog, _why_ couldn’t you be doing this part with Terezi?”

“Because my boss is with Terezi,” Kanaya says. “Seeing as she’s going to take some additional work.”

Your eyes narrow.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“No one’s going to hurt her, if that’s what you’re afraid of,” Kanaya says, laying her soothingly cool hand over yours. “Certainly not Porrim. She’s really very nice. Don’t let the piercings intimidate you.”

“I’ll…try to keep that in mind, if I ever meet her.”

“Oh, you’ll meet her. She’s the one who’s actually in charge. I’m still just a novice, really, but she’s been very gracious about the responsibilities she entrusts to me. Now. Clothes off, if you please.”

You give her your best entreating look.

“Do I have to?”

Kanaya is unmoved by your best entreating look.

“Yes.”

“Can’t I just take a bath with my clothes on?”

She gives you a very pointed look.

“Is this about your blood color?”

Instinct dictates that you back the fuck up, so you do. Kanaya holds out a hand to you, like she’s stretching it out for some feral animal to smell. You suppose that’s basically what you are.

“I already know, Karkat,” she says. “Everyone does.”

“That’s the problem,” you spit, wrapping your arms around yourself. Kanaya’s outstretched hand doesn’t waver.

“I’m not going to hurt you. You are in no danger from me.”

After another few seconds, you allow yourself to take faltering steps back in her direction. She strokes your cheek with her fingertips, then pulls you in for another hug.

“I have always been and will always be your friend. Please don’t be afraid of me.”

“Pssh. Whatever. I’m not afraid of anyone.”

“Mmm-hmm. Of course not. So why should you be afraid of a little bathwater?”

“Bluh.”

“Quite.”

She lets go of you and turns away while you strip. You resist the urge to carefully hang up your sodden clothes to dry, a habit formed from years of frugality and never knowing when you were going to be able to get a new set of clothes. You doubt you’ll be seeing these again, though; the Capitol will be providing your wardrobe now. You bid silent farewell to your threadbare pants and patched shirt and toss both on the floor in a pile with your underthings.

Feeling silly, you scuttle immediately into the trap and tuck your knees up to your chin, making a shield of the water and your legs. Kanaya turns around once you’re in the water.

“See? Now that wasn’t so hard, was—”

She stops, one hand flying up to her mouth. Ugh. This part.

“What on earth happened to you?”

You cup your palm over one of your many scars and shrug.

“So I’m a little dinged up. Just means I’m tougher than the rest of those fuckers, right?”

“You have—those are—Karkat, you have _burns_.”

“Eh. They’re not so bad.”

“How did you get burns?”

You sigh.

“There was a fire at my hive.” You gesture at the silver-shiny burns on your arms, legs, and chest. “Trust me, these could have been a lot worse.”

Kanaya comes to sit on the edge of the trap and picks up one of the many bottles of liquid, pouring some into her hands. You wait for something flowery or overly fragrant to assault your sniffer, but instead only get a faint whiff of mint. She works the stuff into your hair, careful around your newly-damaged horn.

“Was your hive alright?”

Nope. Fuck this conversation. Time for a radical subject change!

“Yeah, everything turned out dandy. So, how do you like your apprentice gig?”

Wow. Subtle.

“My, we did want a topic switch, didn’t we?” Kanaya says, lathering the mint stuff in your hair. “I like it alright, I suppose. As much as one can like anything with such an insidious undertone.”

“Bluh, I’m Kanaya and I use big words.”

“Oh, don’t feed me that, Mister. You were the one who knew the word ‘defenestrate’ at age three. And could use it correctly in a sentence, if I recall.”

You smile a little in spite of yourself.

“Oh yeah. Was that when I told Equius that if he didn’t stop being a bigoted fart-face I would personally defenestrate him?”

“I have archived that chat forever on my hard drive and still pull it up on occasion when I feel the need for a chuckle.”

“That was a good conversation.”

You lapse into silence as Kanaya washes your hair and works out the tangles with a fine-toothed comb. The whole scenario strikes you as pretty intimately pale, but you tell yourself that this is just her job. You think of Gamzee and feel a strange combination of love and anxiety.

_Twenty-four tributes. Only one victor._

You put your face in your hands.

“Karkat? Is something wrong?”

You force sound around the lump in your throat.

“Everything’s wrong.”

Kanaya runs her fingers through your hair, silent for a few moments.

“Why did you volunteer?”

“I’d rather not get into that.”

You can almost feel her frown over your shoulder.

“So many secrets,” she murmurs. “I never thought I’d find myself saying that about you.”

You scrub at your eyes, a preemptive strike against tears that aren’t there.

“I’m sorry.”

Kanaya strokes her fingertips over one of your nicked ears, tracing the half-moon shape where you’re missing a chunk from the lobe.

“Don’t be.” She splashes some of the bathwater at you and says, “Now scrub off so you can be presentable for Porrim.”

She turns away again while you finish washing yourself, suggesting a soap or moisturizer every once in a while. When you’re as close to properly scrubbed as you’re ever going to get, you climb out of the bath and wrap yourself in the fluffy towel lying on a nearby table. You feel stupid walking around in nothing else, but Kanaya doesn’t seem inclined to give you any other form of clothing just yet.

She steers you over to a fancy chair in front of a well-lit mirror. You recoil when you see the reflection of the scissors in her hand.

“Oh, relax. I’m not going to cut off an ear or a horn,” she says. “I’ve done this hundreds of times. Besides, you’re long overdue for a trim.”

You squeeze your eyes shut while Kanaya cuts your hair and try to figure out how long you’ve been in here. A long time, by your calculations, seeing as you’ve found one irritating way or another to prolong absolutely everything.

“Is Terezi done with all this stuff yet?” you ask. Kanaya snips another dead end off, giggling.

“I’m not psychic, Karkat. I don’t know. Probably not.”

“I don’t see how it could take nearly as long with her as it would with me. She’s way better-groomed than I am. And less opposed to bathing. And hair-cutting. And is basically already really pretty.”

The giggling gets louder.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” Kanaya says. “It’s just so cute how flushed you are for her.”

“Aaaargh.”

You are the master of eloquence. It’s you.

“You realize I’ve heard about Mr. Strider’s tactics for your media appearances,” Kanaya says.

“Oh. Great. Another person in on this abominable plan.”

Kanaya sets the scissors aside and turns your chair around.

“Karkat,” she says, very seriously. “It’s a good strategy.”

You grit your teeth.

“However Terezi and I feel about each other is none of the public’s business! For fuck’s sake, I don’t even know if she likes me that way! What about her feelings? Oh wait, I forgot, no one around here gives two bloody shits about our feelings as long as they get a good show!”

Kanaya puts on her best highly-displeased face (and it’s an intimidating specimen), folding her arms in irritation.

“Karkat Vantas,” she snaps. “If you think for one second that no one has taken your feelings into account, then you are gravely mistaken. But at the end of the day, it is far more important to me and to your handler to see to it that you and Terezi both have the highest possible chance of survival going into this, and if that means sacrificing your private lives, real or unreal, then by gog we will do it without a second thought. Do you understand what a tactic like this could do for you?”

You throw up your hands.

“Not in the fucking slightest! What does the made-up saga of our star-crossed love even fucking change? _Only one survives_.”

Kanaya puts both hands on the arms of your chair and leans in.

“To every rule,” she says quietly, “there is an exception.”

You stare at her as the meaning sinks in.

“You think we could both win?”

“There is a precedent.”

“Bullshit. If there was, I’d know.”

“Not in our lifetimes. And not in the troll Games.”

“What do you mean, ‘not in the troll Games?’”

Kanaya looks like she doesn’t know how much to tell you.

“The very last human Games ever hosted had two survivors,” she says. “And they pulled it off by convincing the world that they couldn’t live without each other.”

“How do you even know this?” you ask. “It could just be a wiggler fantasy story; all that footage is in lockup.”

Kanaya’s voice is harsh when she speaks again.

“Your handler was one of the survivors,” she says. “His wife was the other.”

You feel cold all through your insides. You don’t really know why.

Finally, you manage, “That asshole has a wife?”

Kanaya sighs, all the intensity draining out of her.

“Her name is Roxy. She’s very nice. She’s the handler for the District Three tributes.”

That means she’ll be dealing with Tavros and Vriska. Lucky lady. That also means…

“Does she know Sollux?”

Kanaya’s expression softens.

“Of course.”

You shoot forward in your chair.

“Is he here? Can I see him?”

Kanaya takes your shoulders and pushes you back, shaking her head.

“We’ll see,” she murmurs. “But don’t get your hopes up.”

You don’t have time to voice your disappointment before the door opens to admit the most striking adult you’ve ever seen. She’s wearing a low-cut black dress that shows off the elaborate tattoos coiling over her skin. Her heavy eyelids are painted with some sort of shimmering green makeup that reminds you of the color of peacock tail feathers. She has…a hell of a lot of piercings.

She is also Kanaya’s older doppelganger.

You clutch at the sleeve of Kanaya’s pretty silk dress.

“’Naya,” you whisper. “Is she—”

“Porrim? Yes, she is.”

You shake your head, unable to look away from the approaching adult.

“No. Is she your ancestor?”

Porrim hears the question and smiles. It makes her look far less intimidating.

“That I am.”

You glance up at Kanaya. She’s smiling too, proud and a little daunted, but…they’re happy with each other, comfortable in one another’s presence.

As you have already established yourself the master of eloquence, you say, “Holy shit.”

Porrim’s giggle sounds just like Kanaya’s.

“Oh my. Nothing like your own ancestor, I see.”

“Bluh. Don’t talk to me about that guy.”

You swear Porrim’s expression turns a little pouty at that, but she recovers quickly in favor of looking you over. Kanaya makes you stand up and turn around under the adult’s scrutiny. You squeak when Porrim whips your towel away. She makes no comment in regards to your scars or your nudity.

“Hmm. A little on the thin side, aren’t you? Well, no matter. The waif look is good for our purposes. Kanaya, tape measure, please.”

You are not going to think about how you are standing stark naked in front of your grubhood friend and her adult ancestor. You are not thinking about it. Not even a little.

You are totally thinking about it and it is totally freaking you out.

Some of it must show on your face, because Porrim graces you with another surprisingly maternal smile.

“You’re a worrier, aren’t you, Karkat?”

You scowl at her tape measure as it loops around your chest.

“Maybe a little.”

“I thought you might be. But do try to trust us. I can say with no arrogance whatsoever that we are one of the best fashion teams on the Games circuit.”

You try to choke down some of the fear closing your throat.

“Yeah. I’ll be sure to win the Most Fabulously Dressed Tribute award. Fantastic.”

Porrim cups your face. Underneath her black eyeliner, her irises look extraordinarily green.

“You will win the hearts of the public,” she says. “My dear, we have _plans_ for you.”

               

**Terezi: Wake Up**

You wake to the smell of chemicals and cosmetics and open your eyes to see white ceiling tiles above you.

Wait.

See.

 _See_.

You can see them.

With your eyes.

And that is when you decide it is time to panic. 


	4. Tributes: Participate In Pompous, Glitzy Bullshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author blatantly steals Games events from the HG series before going down the road of 'I-Promise-To-Be-More-Creative-Next-Time...'

**Kankri: React**

“So whatcha know about him?”

You turn your attention away from the view out of your relaxation block’s window and return it to Cronus, who is taking up your entire couch with his long-limbed sprawl. When he’s standing, he towers over a foot above you, the poster boy for the perfect male seadweller physique. You miss the early days of your friendship, when he was bigger than you but not _so_ much bigger. Things were more innocent then.

“I’m sorry,” you say, turning your teacup in your hands. “What were you asking me?”

“Jeez, Kan, you payin’ attention to a word I’m sayin’? All this starin’ off into space shit you do now sorta makes me miss the days when you were Mr. Motormouth.”

You almost conjure up a smile.

“Are you asking for a lecture?”

He looks horrified at the very thought.

“No, sweet jesus, please.”

Your almost-smile turns wry. You don’t think the word ‘bitter.’ Bitterness is not an emotion you permit yourself.

“I didn’t think so.”

You sip your tea and go back to admiring the view of the always-flowering central courtyard.

“I was askin’ about your descendent kid. You know anythin’ about him?”

You take another sip of tea and your hands do not tremble. You do not show outward reactions. Visible vulnerability is another thing you do not permit yourself.

“Not a thing.”

“Huh. Well that’s downright boring. Seems like nobody knows shit about this kid. He went off the grid sweeps ago and everybody just lost track of him.”

“Hmm,” you say. It’s a neutral response. Neutral responses are a safe go-to when you don’t know what to say.

“Lispy knows him, apparently, but the little fucker won’t share. Figures that Mituna’s spawn would be just as fuckin’ retarded as—”

He goes quiet at the look you give him. Then he sulks.

“Well it’s not like you were Mituna’s number one fan, or nothin’,” he mumbles. “Can’t a guy just speak his mind without you gettin’ all judgy and hypocritical?”

“No.”

“You’re no fun anymore, Vantas.”

“Was I ever any fun to begin with?”

“Well…not exactly, but you know what I mean. Anyway. Lispy. Or here, I’ll be PC: _Sollux_. Me an’ Meenah tried askin’ him about all the tribs he knows for our bettin’ pool, right? But he just got all uppity and stalked off. An’ this was after we saved him from Damara. Least he could have done was—”

“Told you intimate details about his friends and their survival skills so that you could pick one to wager your vast amounts of wealth on? Yes, of course that would have been the appropriate reaction.”

Oh dear. That came very close to sounding bitter.

“Whoa, man. That any way to talk to your old friend?”

You are gripping your cup too hard. You are gripping it too hard and you are going to crack it, so you turn around and set it down on the coffee table. It clacks rather loudly. You are thinking too fast and moving too fast and feeling too much. You are not reacting in a way that is safe or fair or permitted but you cannot stop the words from leaving your lips:

“I believe you ceased to be my friend the first time you ordered me into your flushed quadrant.”

He looks hurt. Oh, well done. You’ve said something spiteful and hurt him and this is not who you are, this is not what you do, this is not how you relate to people, but all your safeguards are falling away as of late and without them you feel stripped of your armor, incapable of dealing with others.

“Come on, Kan. Thought we’d talked about that. You know it’s all but expected of someone of my caste. I’m just as much a victim of society as you are.”

You are sorry for hurting his feelings, you really are. But the shrill, angry noise in your head is still unquiet.

“You didn’t _actually_ have to sleep with me,” you mutter. You sound petulant and disdainful and you hate yourself. This isn’t fair. You have no concept of the sorts of societal forces Cronus has to deal with, so who are you to judge?

And yet…Meenah has never requested you or Damara. Or any of the other survivors, so far as you know. But perhaps it’s only because she has a quadrant filled that she feels no need to demand favors.

“Aw, come on, sugargrub,” Cronus says, his voice turning soft and faintly wheedling. You hate when he calls you that. You are not a child, nor are you particularly sweet. “You don’t understand the pressure, okay? It makes me into a downright ugly mess sometimes, ya know? I didn’t think I was hurtin’ you. I mean…” he gives you a look that you think is meant to be guilty but doesn’t quite make it. “It’s not like you were even still a virgin, or nothin’.”

You go so still that your breath stalls and your thinkpan slows and your pulse fluctuates.

Cronus winces without looking particularly sorry.

“Should I not’ve brought that up?”

All the speed comes back to you, nerve-endings firing back to life and the cogs in your mind spinning in overdrive. This must be what a malfunction feels like to a machine, the perception that something in some mechanism has gone wrong and now it’s short-circuiting everything around it.

“Get out.”

“Wha—”

“Get _out_.”

“Easy, chief, what’s your problem?”

“Cronus,” you say, your voice low and dark and unrecognizable, “you are infringing on what little personal space I am still allowed. I am asserting my ability to make you stop. Now _leave_.”

You expect him to protest, but he doesn’t. Instead, he gets up and retreats, eyes wide and watching you as he backs away to the door. You know you can’t possibly look threatening. It’s not in your genetics—

_“Damn, look at those teeth! Blunt as spoons. You can barely even see his horns.”_

_“He’s practically human.”_

—or in your demeanor. And yet, you swear he looks frightened of you.

“Call me when you’re not in raging douchebag mode,” he snaps, ducking out the front door.

As soon as he’s gone, you throw every lock and bolt into place and sit down on the floor and breathe very fast into your knees until you pass out.

You dream about Mituna and Latula as if they are right there with you, talking like you all used to, and when Mituna jostles your shoulder and says something vile, you reach for his arm and tell him how sorry you are for everything, and he says—

“Huh?”

You blink. Latula and Mituna are gone, and it’s Mr. Strider’s arm you’re clutching onto. You shut your eyes and sigh out the rest of the dream world.

“Nothing,” you tell him. “I was just talking in my sleep.”

“Is today just Sleep-Anywhere-Other-than-the-Recuperacoon Day?”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of that particular holiday.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“With some of the ridiculous annual celebrations I’ve read about in your history modules, can you really blame me for wondering? I encountered something referred to as Talk-Like-a-Pirate Day, for heaven’s sake.”

He snorts.

“Fair enough. Anyway, I just came to tell you that the Opening Ceremonies will be starting in a couple hours.”

“Do I have to go?”

“Come on, now. How long have you been here? Yes, you have to go. Just let the press snap a couple pictures. Spout bullshit about how happy you are if they ask you anything.”

“You’ll be with the children, I presume?”

His face goes a little softer, one corner of his mouth turning up in what you’ve come to recognize as his version of a smile. He makes that exact expression every time you refer to the tributes as children.

“Yeah, same old same old. You’ll have a security detail, though. I handpicked ‘em, so nobody oughtta give you any trouble.”

You stifle a yawn behind your palm.

“Thank you as always for your foresight, Mr. Strider.”

He nods and lets you get to your feet on your own.

You hesitate a moment, then ask, “How are they?”

He arches an eyebrow.

“The children, I mean,” you clarify. Your hands form knots with one another.

“They’re cute kids,” he says. “They’ll get a shitload of backers.”

You frown at the carpet.

“That isn’t quite what I meant.”

He sighs.

“They’re scared and trying not to show it. Like every single trib ever selected.”

You chance a glance at him.

“And their personalities?”

He smirks.

“Terezi’s smart as a whip and she knows it. Bit on the odd side, but in an endearing way. Knows the legal system inside and out. She’s a force.”

You think Latula would have been proud of a descendent like that. You can’t hold onto that thought for very long because it makes your inner mechanics start misfiring again.

“And the boy?”

“Karkat,” Mr. Strider reminds you, gently, like he knows you were avoiding the name on purpose.

You nod, but can’t make yourself repeat it.

“You want my honest opinion on him?”

“I wouldn’t ask you for anything else.”

Mr. Strider nods, frowning.

“Okay. That kid is a fucking disaster. I’ve seen a lot of batshit tributes, but he wins some kind of prize for Most Neurotic Little Tornado With A Thousand Yard Stare. He’s hostile, he’s paranoid, he’s shouty, and he goes completely gooey-eyed every time he looks at Terezi. I think he’s actually a pretty sweet kid. He’s just terrified of anyone finding that out.”

Now your insides feel about as tangled as your fingers.

“I see.”

Mr. Strider goes quiet for a moment, just looking at you. At least, you presume he’s looking at you; sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell, considering his eyewear.

“Jesus fuck, you _do_ want to meet him.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No. But you don’t have to. Regardless of the fact that he’s your descendent, he’s _troubled_. And you’re still a bleeding-heart. You want to meet him so you can try to fix him.”

“That’s not—”

You stop short because Mr. Strider’s hands land on your shoulders, gripping just a little harder than he usually handles you.

“Kankri,” he says. “Don’t deny it. And for the love of god, don’t do it.”

You draw yourself up as best you can and raise your chin.

“I’m going to have to meet him at some point. Your words. It’s policy, after all.”

“I know. So let me try to get something through that delightfully thick skull of yours: You. Cannot. Fix him. Some people are beyond help. You’ll only hurt yourself by trying.”

“I wasn’t planning—”

He gives you a little shake, not nearly enough force to hurt you, but just enough to rock you back on your heels.

“Maybe not consciously. But by virtue of you being you, you’ll wind up trying anyway. And you can’t. You can’t afford to get attached to him. Do you understand?”

It’s very rare for you to feel any genuine dislike for Mr. Strider, but this is one of those occasions. You glare at him.

“Yes,” you say through your teeth. “I understand.”

He nods, then lets go of your shoulders.

“Good. Now go get pretty for the cameras.”

You turn away from him and walk more quickly in the direction of your respite block than is strictly necessary.

When you emerge twenty minutes later, your apartment is empty again.

**Karkat: Rendezvous**

They dress you in white with red accents. The attire is more than a little strange, in your opinion, styled loosely after the Imperial Knights of who-cares-what century. There’s a drapey toga-ish thing that makes you feel like you’re wearing a dress and a faux-armor breastplate with matching guards for your shins and forearms. They’re carved with (admittedly very pretty) red rune-like designs and crafted out of what you suspect is white gold. On your feet you wear funny-looking sandal-things. The finishing touch, though, is a bright red cape fastened around your shoulders. You curl your lip at the color. It’s practically traditional for tributes to be decked out in their blood color, but you thought Kanaya at least had more sense than that.

You tell her as much once Porrim has left to go get Terezi ready.

Kanaya laughs, steering you into a chair surrounded by bright lights. She roots through her cosmetic bag and pulls out a black eyeliner pencil.

“The red isn’t for your blood color, silly. It’s to drive home to the audience that you and Terezi are flushed for one another.”

You sigh.

“Great. So I take it we’ll be in coordinating colors?”

Kanaya looks offended at the suggestion that she _wouldn’t_ have coordinated your outfits.         

“Of course.”

“So why not just make everything red, then?”

Kanaya brushes the tip of the pencil under your eye. You’re surprised to find it doesn’t hurt.

“Historically, the color white has held many different symbolic implications,” she says. “We are capitalizing on the most commonly held connotation.”

“What, moirallegience?” you ask, baffled and slightly offended. You’re pale for Gamzee, not Terezi.

“On the surface level, perhaps. But moirallegience is traditionally depicted in white because of what the color has been culturally accepted to mean. In the minds of the masses, white is a symbol of purity and innocence.” She finishes outlining your left eye and moves the pencil to your right. “In essence, we are trying to subtly remind the viewers that you are not tributes, but children.”

You feel a sadness that you can’t articulate, so you keep quiet and let Kanaya finish your makeup. She leaves it at the eyeliner and a touch of gold shadow on your eyelids, then takes both your hands and pulls you to your feet.

“Come take a look at yourself,” she says, leading you over to a full-length mirror. You grit your teeth and brace yourself for the full ridiculous effect and—

—nope, okay, that thought has been fully annihilated, because you look fucking _dashing_.

You turn to Kanaya, mouth open in shock. She’s smiling, slightly smug.

“How—you—I thought it would look—how did you manage—”

Kanaya makes a show of straightening your cape.

“Porrim did tell you that we were one of the best fashion teams. She does not tend to hyperbolize about such things.”

“I look _good_!”

“Amazing what a little soap and water will do, isn’t it?”

“Don’t even start with me.”

Kanaya smiles. You’re overwhelmed with the simplest sort of love for her.

The moment breaks when her mobile device buzzes. She picks it up off the table she’d left it on and flips it open, pausing for a moment to read the screen. Then she closes it and holds out her arm for you to take.

“Alright, Porrim’s finished with Terezi. Time to rendezvous.”

You draw in a breath and hold it tight in your lungs to prevent yourself for screaming. Instead, you nod and allow Kanaya to lead you through the winding halls to a room that resembles a T.V. studio. There are trolls bustling around with lights and cameras and sound equipment and—is that a fucking hoofbeast-drawn chariot facing the closed set of double doors? With dawning horror, you realize that that’s what you’ll be riding out into the arena where the spectators will get their first glimpse of the Capitol-spit-shined you. A motherfucking _chariot_.

You see Porrim a few feet away talking quietly to a pretty troll girl you’ve never—

The girl turns in your direction and you realize that you’re looking at Terezi.

You fail to remember how to breathe.

If you’re meant to be a knight, then Terezi is meant to be your lady. She’s dressed in long swathes of white fabric, a red shawl draped artfully across one shoulder and looped around her waist. Her hair is pinned back in elaborate braids set behind a glittering headband-tiara-circlet thing. You’re fairly certain that the rubies set into it are real. White gold bangles circle her arms, delicate counterpoints to your armor plates.

You lock eyes with her.

You lock _eyes_ with her.

“Oh my god, what did they _do_ to you?”

You’re across the room and holding her face before you register the motion it must have taken.

“Ocular regeneration, apparently,” Terezi says, her voice troublingly flat. “Standard procedure is to heal all infirmities before sending us into the Games. Evens the playing field, supposedly.”

“Then Tavros—”

“Yeah.”

You don’t know whether to be relieved or furious. Then you realize you’re still holding her face and take a step back, sheepish.

“Well…you look nice,” you mutter.

“So do you, crabapple. Who knew you cleaned up well?”

“Well, well, look at the happy couple,” says a voice to your left. You glare at Dirk Strider’s approach. You were really hoping to be rid of that guy for a while.

“Nice work, ladies,” Strider says to Porrim and Kanaya. Porrim glances at the clock on the wall.

“You can kiss my feet later, Dirk,” she says. “It’s almost time. Alright, you two, into the chariot.”

She hustles you into the blasted device. It’s cramped and feels unstable and you don’t know where to put your hands. Strider soon fixes that dilemma by insisting that you and Terezi hold hands.

“Just try to be calm,” Porrim instructs you. “Try to engage with the crowd somehow—smile at them, or wave.”

“But keep holding hands,” Strider interrupts. “Make sure they see that.”

“Don’t force a smile if you feel you can’t conjure a genuine one, though.”

“Yeah, but don’t glare at ‘em, either. I’m lookin’ at you, shouty.”

“Just try to act natural.”

The advice washes over your head as you watch the second hand on the clock tick down. Thirty seconds to eight p.m. Twenty. Fifteen.

Kanaya climbs onto the side of the chariot to kiss Terezi’s cheek and your forehead.

“Everything will be alright,” she says softly, and hops down.

Best input you’ve gotten all night.

You hear someone shout, “Okay, people, go time!” and the doors are opening in front of you. You look at Terezi. She looks at you.

And she waggles her eyebrows.

You surge forward into the light of a thousand cameras and the din of many thousand spectators while laughing your ass off.

 

**Sollux: Attend Pompous Glitzy Bullshit**

It’s your first time attending Opening Ceremonies as a spectator. Roxy told you what to expect, but that doesn’t make the crowds or the press any less exhausting. At least you’re not the only one the reporters are flocking, though; Damara, Kankri, and the handful of other survivors still located in the Capitol are all surrounded, too.

You hate the press. They think your lisp is adorable, they ask to touch your mutated double horns, they stand too close, they talk too loud, their camera flashes blind you, and they ask you too many questions.

“—reporting with News Channel Two, live from the Imperial Culling Program’s two hundred and sixty-eighth Opening Ceremonies! I’m here with Sollux Captor, last half-sweep’s victor—”

“—very exciting atmosphere here tonight, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Captor?”

“There are rumors circulating that you know several of this half-sweep’s tributes, Sollux. Is there any truth to these stories?”

“How is life in our glorious Capitol treating you, Sollux?”

“Is there anyone in your quadrants, Sollux?”

“Have you found new love after the death of your moirail?”

That one makes you turn so sharply you think you might have whiplash. You stare at the blueblood holding a microphone in your face. Your mind goes blank. There’s a noise in your aural canals, a high-pitched whining echoing through them and resonating deep in your pan and you can’t hear anything else. You decide at that moment that you are going to kill him. You start to raise your arm, planning to get him around the throat, and you know this won’t end well for you but you don’t care, he has no right, _he has no right_ —

You sense a presence behind you. The reporters go hushed, the kind of quiet brought on by deep discomfort. One by one, they disperse, wordless, some wide-eyed. The blueblood who’d asked you about Aradia is visibly shaking as he all but runs away from you.

Slowly, you turn to see what the hell is behind you.

You’re greeted by a painted face and a placid smile.

You’ve only met Kurloz Makara on a few occasions, though you swear you’ve seen him lurking around the Victors’ Village more than once. Which seems like a strange place for him to go, seeing as he helps design the Games arenas. You’d think he’d want to keep away from potentially pissed-off victors.

He waves hello. You return the gesture, and then feel like both an idiot and a jerk because _oh right he’s mute, not deaf, dumbass._

“Uh. Hi,” you say. He smiles at you again and doesn’t try to say anything more complex. Your knowledge of sign language is pretty limited.

It’s weird being around him. He looks a lot like Gamzee, only even more monstrously huge and with somehow wilder hair. He’s also undeniably creepy as all hell.

You can just barely feel the remnants of his chucklevoodoos drifting past you.

“You made those reporters back off,” you say.

It isn’t a question. His smile turns a little more ominous, and he raises a finger to his lips. 

“Why?”

He shrugs, then does the strangest thing yet and pats your head with one enormous hand. For a guy who could probably rip you in half without breaking a sweat, the touch is surprisingly gentle.

Then he’s gone as quickly as he’d showed up. You don’t know how a guy so big moves like that.

Your security detail looks a little rattled, but they don’t comment on the incident as they escort you to your seat in one of the private boxes high up at the top of the stadium. You breathe a sigh of relief; there’s glass separating you from the noise of the general seating, and the press isn’t allowed up here. You share awkward glances with the handful of older victors already seated. You sink into a chair (real leather, heated seats, classic Capitol bullshit indulgences) and wait.

Damara bursts into the room with her usual chaotic flare, her flummoxed security guards trailing behind her. Rather than sit, she presses herself right up against the window overlooking the field. Kankri follows not long behind her, looking harried and exasperated. You pluck the sleeve of his dress shirt to get his attention. He straightens his clothes and sits down next to you.

“Alright?” you ask, too quietly for anyone else to hear. He nods, just once, but he looks far from alright.

“And you?” he asks.

You shrug.

“Fine, I guess." Then you add, “Kurloz scared off some reporters for me. He’s your friend, isn’t he? Why would he do that?”

Kankri doesn’t turn to look at you, but you can see his eyes widen slightly.

He doesn’t get a chance to answer, however, as the loudspeakers crackle to life and the Imperial anthem blares across the stadium.

You rise to your feet with the rest of the spectators and place your hand over your chest. No one inside the victors’ box sings along, with the notable exception of Damara, who improvises her own lyrics:

_“Oh great fucking Capitol_

_Oink-fuckers and dirtscum_

_Salute to the bitches on high_

_And fuck them all with pink dildos…”_

You can’t help but snicker, and you’re not the only one. The other victors are chuckling, and the guards are clearly trying to repress laughter. Hell, even Kankri looks faintly amused, if not completely mortified by her vulgarity.

Spurred on by the reception, Damara continues the second verse with:

_“Oh Empress, my Empress_

_You old cranky barnacle_

_Make me your whore forever_

_I dance in frilly panties_

_For glory to fucking Empire…”_

The room is in hysterics by the time the anthem is over. This exact batshittery is exactly why Damara got popular and stayed that way. What sort of crazy thing will come out of Damara’s mouth next? Nobody knows! She’s just crazy!

You sort of wonder what would happen to her if anyone ever realized they should maybe take her seriously.

You ignore all the speeches by highblood politicians praising the Empress, the Empire, and the Games, instead opting to play games on your phone. The other survivors seem to be equally tuned out. None of your guards bother telling you to pay attention; these are the people who deal with Games survivors when the handlers have other duties, so they tend to be pretty lax with the glory-be-to-the-Empire stuff.

You do look up from your phone when they start bringing in the tributes.

You know the first two names called.

“Representing District One, Equius Zahhak and Nepeta Leijon!”

You slide forward in your seat as a hoofbeast-drawn chariot circles the arena. It’s easier to see your friends on the enormous screen projecting the live feeds from the cameras. Equius is sweating through his entirely blue (and somewhat hideous, you note) suit, his smile wooden and forced. Beside him, Nepeta’s smile looks a little more genuine, and her green dress suits her far better than Equius’s getup. She’s pressed very close to his side, her already large eyes even larger as she takes in the cheering crowd. You wonder if word’s gotten out yet that they’re moirails. Your throat tightens, and you sink back in your seat as the chariot finishes its loop to allow the tributes from District Two make their entrance.

You zone out long enough that you don’t register that they’ve announced the tributes for your old district. You snap out of your angst-party when Damara gives a bone-chilling and thoroughly unexpected snarl, raking her claws down the window. The sound makes your aurals feel like they’re bleeding.

“Nitram?” she hisses, “ _Nitram_?! Bulgelicking bastard! Liar cheating scum-sucker! You die! You die, I made sure! Why you not stay dead?!”

She bangs her fists against the window hard enough to rattle it. The security guards begin to shift in her direction, but Kankri gets there first.

“He’s a different Nitram, Damara,” he says quietly. “Rufioh is still very much dead.”

Damara beats her fists against the glass again.

“Hellspawn,” she spits, just as Tavros and Vriska disappear from view.

You know what’s coming next, but you still jolt when you hear, “Representing District Four, Terezi Pyrope and Karkat Vantas!”

You drift to the window with Kankri and Damara. You’re probably blocking somebody’s view, but you give negative fucks. Kankri stands perfectly still. You stare out into the stadium at your friends and forget how to breathe.

 

**Terezi: Make an Impression**

It’s the most overwhelming experience you’ve ever had in your life. All around you there are noises and smells and you can see _everything_ , the thousands of faceless spectators and blur of the ground underneath you as the chariot flies across the arena and the flashes of cameras, bright enough to bring back the blindness you were so accustomed to, and every time you hope it will stick.

Somehow, you’re smiling. Remarkably, Karkat is too. You can see the two of you, larger than life on a multi-sided screen suspended above the stadium, and you both look small and fierce and beautiful. You are clutching Karkat’s hand harder than you have ever clutched even the guiltiest of your scalemates upon arresting them.

The loudspeakers boom your names.

“Representing District Four, Terezi Pyrope and Karkat Vantas!”

Karkat lifts your linked hands. The crowd screams like they’re wigglers at a pop concert and you’re the stars. Karkat looks stunned by the reaction. His wide-eyed expression of surprise merits a (completely understandable, by _gog_ is he adorable) chorus of, “Aaaaaaaws,” from the audience. You lean into him, grinning. You are half-mad and terrified. You are high as your juggalo kismesis and craving a spectacle.

“Wanna really give ‘em something to coo over?” you ask, and smooch his adorable pouty lips before he has a chance to answer.

**Sollux: Continue Attending Pompous Glitzy Bullshit**

You don’t have a word to describe them other than _alight_.

Kanaya and Porrim have outdone themselves. You always thought Terezi and Karkat were cute, the former in an angular sort of way and the latter in a scrappy little bastard way. But seeing them like this, straight-backed and draped in billowing white and red, it’s like you can see the courage radiating from them, the very will to live made flesh and bone, and it’s abstract and concrete all at once and you have tears in your eyes for reasons you can’t explain.

Damara seizes onto Kankri’s arm, sudden enough to startle you as well as him.

“Your boy a fighter. I see. I know,” she says, and smiles a nasty, toothy smile. “Strong. Warrior. Not like you.”

Kankri shakes her off and asks to be excused.

You remain at the window, unable to look away as the chariot carrying two of your best friends reaches the halfway point of its circle.

When Terezi kisses Karkat, you know who the audience will be backing. 

 

**Kankri: Hear Something Ominous**

You spend the rest of Opening Ceremonies violently ill in the bathroom and wishing the whole world would go away. You stay there long past the end of the event, slumped on the floor as you listen to the stampede of feet once the show is over. You’re sure one of your guards must be standing outside the door, keeping people from coming in to bother you. You wait for the noise to subside.

And then it’s mercifully quiet and you could sleep here, you really could, it’s so very quiet.

You don’t bother getting up when you hear the door open. After a prolonged silence, however, you turn.

You’re both surprised and not surprised to see Kurloz standing a few feet behind you, head tilted like he’s trying to figure out what to say to you.

“Hello, Kurloz,” you manage, you voice raw. “It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it?”

He spends another moment thinking, then makes a series of graceful hand gestures. It’s been at least a sweep since you’ve talked, so it takes you an embarrassingly long time to read:

_You okay, friend?_

“Yes,” you answer at last. “Just fine. Thank you.”

Another long pause. Then he signs:

_Saw your little descendent out there._

You barely manage to keep from retching again.

“Ah, yes.”

_Tula’s, too. And Rufioh’s. And Horrus’s. And Serket’s. And Meulin’s._

You shut your eyes and do not dare open them because you have not cried since you were six sweeps old and you will not start now.

“I know.”

You make yourself open your eyes again so as not to be rude to him. He signs:

_Mine, too._

You swallow around the knot in your throat.

“The odds are improbable.”

_Screw odds, motherfucker._

You grasp onto the sink and pull yourself to your feet.

“I don’t know what to say,” you mumble.

That earns you a wry smile.

_That’s a first._

You try to return the smile. You’re not quite sure you achieve it.

“Isn’t it just?”

And suddenly, he’s in your personal space, looming as only a full-grown indigo can loom. His eyes are full of that over-bright intensity that’s always secretly frightened you.

 _There’s fate in this, my brother,_ he signs. _It means something. Only the Mirthful Messiahs could tell what, but I see the storm beginning._

Your skin prickles with chills. And then, just as quickly as he’d approached you, he’s gone, and your world is quiet again.

 

**Terezi: Pretend to be Invisible**

You come in from the field to cheering and applause. Kanaya hugs both of you in one go, and Porrim swoops in over her to kiss your foreheads.

“Well done,” she whispers, and you can hear the pride in her voice.

Kanaya hasn’t let go of you for more than a few seconds before you’re swept off your feet entirely, the backstage area turning to a dizzying motion blur as you’re spun in a circle. You’re set back on your feet with your head spinning.

“You, little miss, are brilliant,” say the three Mr. Striders swimming in front of you. The images at last resolve into one, and he’s _smiling_ at you, really smiling. “They’re already in love with you two. Christ, you should see the numbers…”

Then he turns to Karkat and pulls him into a rough one-armed hug, messing up his hair.

“And _you_ ,” he says. “Who the fuck knew you could be charming? Every news station on the air is calling you adorable.”

Karkat hisses, pushing feebly at Mr. Strider’s arm.

“Let go.”

Chuckling, Mr. Strider does, giving his hair a final muss.

“Good work, you two. Just keep it up and you’ll have a damn fine chance.”

And just like that, the magic breaks. You free-fall back to reality and hit hard, sagging against Karkat’s side. You are no longer the glittering warrior princess riding your chariot through the cheering masses with your prized knight by your side. You are a girl marked for death.

The sight of your sparkling gold sandals rendered in high-resolution by your perfect new oculars sends you over the edge. You put your face in your hands.

Almost immediately, there are too many people trying to talk to you. You flinch away from them and hear Karkat say, “Hey, hey, back up, assholes, leave her be, no seriously—argh, fuck this,” and then something goes _swish_ and a heavy swathe of fabric falls over your head. You realize after a moment that it’s Karkat’s cape.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “Just ignore them. You okay?”

You laugh through your tears.

“We are hiding under your cape like wigglers pretending to be invisible,” you say. “What are our lives coming to, crabapple?”

Karkat’s hands circle your wrists and gently pry them from your face.

“Fuck that ‘pretending’ shit. We are totally invisible. And this is not ridiculous _at all_.”

You snort. Karkat picks up the corner of the shawl draped around you and dabs your face with it.

“Come on, stop snotting. It’s okay.”

You sniffle.

“You just want me to stop because it means your fake-matesprit isn’t pretty anymore.”

Karkat makes a harsh, dismissive sound and continues blotting at your face.

“Okay, let’s address everything wrong with that statement. False assumption of the first and foremost nature: you are always pretty regardless of how much snot may or may not be all over your face. False assumption of a secondary nature: do you seriously think I’m so shallow that how I feel about you, fake matespritship aside, is in any way dictated by what you look like? Because that is a steaming pile of hoofbeast crap. I would still think you were likeable and awesome in every way if you weighed three hundred pounds, wore juggalo paint, and cut your hair in a mullet. Would I question your fashion sense and your health? Absolutely. But I’d still like you.”

You’re giggling by the end of the speech. Karkat doesn’t crack a smile, but his ever-present scowl seems a little softer than usual. He rubs your nose with the end of the shawl, then flicks your earlobe.

“So cheer the hell up.”

You kiss his cheek. The single thing you like about having working oculars again is being able to see him blush.

“Thoroughly cheered, Karcrab.”

Karkat shuffles.

“Well. Good. Now we can stop acting like wigglers pretending to be invisible.”

He shifts the cape off your heads and you blink at the loss of the pleasant darkness that had enveloped you. When you glance at Mr. Strider and the Maryams, they’re all smiling. Karkat’s blush deepens, and his scowl gains several levels up the echeladder of scowliness.

“Quit smirking. We’re tired. Show us to our fucking rooms and let us get some fucking sleep, or so help me gog, I will throw a tantrum of such astonishing proportions that it will go down in history as Most Planet-Shattering Shriek-Festivus In All The Glorious Ages. I will be the troll-Sampson of tantrums and raze this stadium to the ground by sheer force of my powerful rage. I will—”

Mr. Strider cuts him off.

“Yeah, okay, crankypants. We get it. Just hush up and follow me.”

Karkat smirks to have been awarded his way and says a surprisingly polite goodbye to Kanaya and Porrim. You do the same.

As you trail behind Mr. Strider through the halls, you slip your arm around Karkat’s shoulders and don’t let go until you reach your destination.

 

**Karkat: Doubt**

You and Terezi are given adjoining suites for your stay in the Imperial City, and you’re fairly certain your jaw unhinges when you get a look at the space. The food preparation block is fully stocked with anything you could ever desire to stuff in your gullet. The ablution block is easily the size of your old respite block and has a trap with jacuzzi jets that turn your muscles to jelly. The wardrobe contains more sets of clothes than you’ve ever possessed in your life. When you climb into the recuperacoon, you discover that the sopor is heated. A wash of cozy exhaustion sweeps over you, and you let it carry you away into sleep.

You startle back to consciousness when someone slips into the sopor with you.

You come awake fighting despite your lack of weapon. A strong hand catches your uppercut, another coming up to cup your cheek.

“Shh, motherfucker, shh, shh, easy now…”

You realize then that you know the body pressed up against you. You go limp and let your head fall to your moirail’s shoulder, breathing hard.

“Jesus, Gamzee. Jesus. You can’t—what if I’d had a sickle, huh?”

Gamzee pets the back of your head, making more soothing noises.

“It’s all chill, li’l motherfucker. Sorry I got my creep on.”

“How’d you even get _in_ here?” you ask. “This place is crawling with guards.”

You turn your head to see his face. There’s a sneaky look on it.

“I got my ways, motherfucker. Just never you mind about it.”

You snuggle up to him.

“Yeah, okay, fine. This is me ignoring your creepy shenanigans. Did you chucklevoodoo the guards or something?”

His face falls.

“Nah, motherfucker. Can’t be doin’ that anymore. They all up and put a chip in my head so’s I don’t got an unfair motherfucking advantage.”

You swallow the lump in your throat. You’d forgotten that charming little factoid. The Capitol is supposedly all about even playing fields. You think of Terezi’s eyes and burn on the inside.

“Sorry, man.”

You reach up to touch the thin white line on his temple, already healed and scarred over thanks to the power of ridiculous Imperial science. Gamzee butts his head into your hand. You can feel the low rumble in his chest, a familiar comfort. For a long time, you just snuggle together, running your fingers through his hair while he traces the bumps of your spine with calloused, spindly fingers. When you start crying, you try to keep quiet about it, but he notices. Of course he notices.

“Aw, Karbro. Don’t be doin’ that. It’s all gonna be okay, little brother.”

“Why were you picked?” you demand, your voice raw. “Why in fucking hell—were—were you—all of you— _why_ …”

“Hush, motherfucker.”

“I’m so _stupid_.”

“Shhh. I never did much like this plan of yours, palebro, but I motherfucking _understand_ it. A brother has to do what he has to do. Just may be a little harder now.”

“I can’t do this,” you whisper. “Not—not with—oh god, I _can’t_ —”

“Best beloved,” Gamzee says. “You just got to keep your motherfucking head up and your peepers open. Then maybe you’ll see this for the absolute motherfucking miracle it is.”

You shove at his chest.

“How can you even say that?” you hiss. “How can you say that when you know that our friends are going in there with us? When you know how I feel about Terezi? About _you_?”

Gamzee goes _shoosh_ and paps your cheek until you’re calm again.

“It’ll all turn out alright, motherfucker,” he murmurs, rocking you. “Just you hold on and see. It’ll be alright.”

You mold yourself around his frame and try desperately to believe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahaha over three hundred hits??? Eeeee! To quote AVPM: "Wowee, Harry Potter!" Thanks to everyone for reading!


	5. Karkat: Show Your Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in this chapter for: original troll characters (and troll names, ugh, ugh, not my strong suit)! Fighting! Studio audiences! Emotional demands! Long end-notes that nobody actually has to read!

**Dave: Show Off Your Sweet Skills**

You wake up to a too-bright burst of sudden sunlight and the phrase, “Suit up, little man.”

You push yourself up on your elbow, blinking.

“What time is it?” you mumble.

“Seven a.m. on the dot. Come on, you’re supposed to be the time guy.”

“Why in fuck are you waking me up at seven in the gogforsaken morning?”

“Tell me you didn’t actually forget that trib-training starts today.”

You groan and flop back against the bed. You had forgotten, actually. Probably on purpose.

Bro picks you up under the armpits and sets you on your feet. It’s not fair that he can still do that.

“Nope. Up.”

“Dude, this part sucks. Can’t we just skip it?”

“Other parts suck worse. Now get dressed. Her Imperious Will-Throw-A-Literally-Royal-Fit-If-You-Don’t-Show-Up wants you all there with bells on.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“Actual bells?”

“Absolutely.”

“Dude, I don’t know whether or not you’re being ironic right now because…Condy.”

“I triple dog dare you to wear bells in there.”

You start digging through your dresser for workout gear. Jade keeps swearing that you need to let the Empire get you a wardrobifier, but those things freak you right the fuck out. You like your drawer of mismatched socks and wrinkled t-shirts, thank you very much.

“Why bother daring me when you could just mention it in passing to Roxy, comfortable in the knowledge that she would totally do it without being dared?”

“True.”

You pull out a pair of sweatpants and a plain white shirt and turn around. Bro hasn’t left to let you change. His facial expressions are subtle, but you can recognize some of them (Rose can recognize more, argh, so annoying). This one is the zoned-out face. The dude’s got a mind with a million moving parts and he just gets caught in his own clockwork sometimes.

“Uh…how are your tribs?” you ask.

He leans his back against the wall, arms folded. _Defensive posturing,_ Rose had called it once.

“You watch the Opening Ceremonies?”

“Yeah.”

“There you go, then.”

You scowl and turn away from him to change your shirt.

Unexpectedly, he adds, “They’re firecrackers, both of ‘em. Dunno if they can fight for shit, but I guess we’ll find out. The girl I’d put money on knowing how to use a weapon. Midbloods have better resources for that kind of thing. If you count a teal as a midblood, and fucked if I know where they fall. The little guy…he talks tough. And he _did_ volunteer. But I don’t know if that means he actually knows a damn thing about fighting.”

You shoot him a sideways look. Bro doesn’t give you that much information without there being a tactical reason for it.

“You want me to pay attention to him,” you say.

Bro nods, just once. You feel a secret thrill that you guessed correctly. Still, it’s a strange request. You haven’t been helping demonstrate for the tributes for very long, but in that time, Bro and Roxy have never asked you to pay special attention to someone, least of all one of their own tributes. You wonder if this has something to do with Kankri, but know better than to ask.

Bro flash-steps out of your room, presumably to go retrieve his tributes. Five minutes later, John is pounding on your door demanding to know if you’re ready to go yet. He doesn’t let up until you open the door, eyeroll hidden behind your shades.

“Who gave him coffee?” you ask the girls, who are already waiting in the living room.

“Pff. I don’t drink that stuff. It tastes gross.”

“Says the boy who could happily stuff his face with Gushers for the rest of his very overweight life,” you point out. “Also, you have too much energy in the morning.”

“But it’s trib-training, dude!” he says. “It’s fun!”

“John, do try to keep the big picture in mind,” Rose says, adjusting the laces on one of her boots. “I doubt it’s nearly as much fun for them as it is for you. Their stakes are rather higher than ours in this particular situation.”

“I just think it’s kind of fun getting to meet everybody,” John says, but he has the good sense to look sheepish.

“We know what you meant, John,” Jade assures him.

You make your way over to the tributes’ housing complex and let yourselves into the training facility there. It’s about on par with your own, just slightly bigger. There aren’t many people here yet; just a handful of security guards and…

…oh good, the fucking royals decided to show up. Joy.

The Condesce never goes anywhere without an entourage, so she has the usual suspects in tow; personal assistants, her fashion consultants, two hairdressers (she needs them with all that hair, jesus), and a ring of bodyguards (not that she needs those in the slightest. You’ve seen the woman use her powers. You’ve also seen her use a trident. Never let it be said that the Empress is not just as much of a warrior as the rest of her people.).

Trailing behind her with their own entourages are her two descendants, Feferi and Meenah (though you’re not sure if Feferi is technically the Condesce’s descendant or Meenah’s. You don’t get troll genetics.). You’re sure the Empress is less than thrilled to have two heiresses, but neither one of them has challenged her for her title yet. If you were Meenah or Feferi, you wouldn’t dare, either.

The last in the pack are the violets, Cronus and Eridan, who you guess sort of function as princes, or something? You know that unlike Meenah and Feferi, they actually have to do stuff around the Capitol. From what you’ve heard, Cronus helps design the Games arenas, but he’s been petitioning to be more involved with Games PR for years. You know that there was a bit of royal drama when Eridan refused to shadow Cronus anymore and instead took a part-time internship in the Imperial laboratories. The tabloids wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks.   

“Well if it ain’t ma four favorite minnows,” the Condesce says. “And growin’ up so _fast_. Johnny-boy, you gonna be as tall as me in no time, I swear.”

John laughs, but it’s an awkward sort of laugh.

“And just look at li’l Miss Lalonde,” the Condesce goes on, cupping Rose’s face. “Once you done goin’ through this goth-girl phase, you gonna have to beat off boys with a stick.”

Rose smiles her thin, dangerous smile.

“I’m a lesbian. But thank you.”

You have never loved your sister more than you do in this moment.

“Pshh. Your funny human terms are just the cutest damn things.”

Rose’s smile morphs into the I-will-kill-you-in-your-sleep smile, and that’s why you’re very glad to hear a voice ring out behind you with:

“Goooooooood morning, Condy!”

The cavalry has arrived in the form of Roxy dressed in bright pink workout gear with her trusty assault rifle slung over her shoulder. Her two tributes stand awkwardly by the door, like they aren’t sure if they’re supposed to follow her as she walks straight up to the Empress. She stops behind Rose and drapes an arm around her shoulders, her grin over-bright and her eyes full of hate as she looks up at the Condesce.

“Step off my daughter, bitch!” she says brightly.

For a moment, the Condesce’s eyes narrow, and your chest seizes with terror. But then the Empress whips out her own parody of a grin and laughs it off.

“Oh, Roxy, girl, you slay me. You say the rudest glubbin’ things, but I know you just be playin.’” She takes a step forward, towering over Roxy, a mass of hair and darkness and centuries-old power. She lowers her voice, and it doesn’t take someone with Jade’s super-sonic hearing to catch the threat in it. “You _is_ just playin’, ain’t that right, girlfriend?”

Roxy’s grin spreads into something more closely resembling a snarl. For a moment, she looks more troll than human. Her arm tightens around Rose.

“Yeah,” she says, soft and malevolent. “Yeah, I’m just playin’.”

The Condesce’s smile brightens.

“Yeah, girl, that’s what I thought.” She turns her attention back to you, John, Jade, and Rose. “A’ight, chickadees. I’mma let you do your thangs. Y’all wow me, now.”

She blows kisses to each of you, then snaps her fingers at her entourage, who follow her upstairs to the viewing gallery. You look over your shoulder to see a cluster of handlers and tributes frozen in the door, most of the tributes gaping (and some of the handlers doing the same) at having seen the Empress in person. The other royals ascend after her, but you’re pretty sure Meenah is eyeing all the weaponry with longing.

“Okay,” Roxy sighs, releasing Rose. “Get to your stations, guys. I’ve gotta get back to my tribs.”

You fistbump goodbye to John, Rose, and Jade and take your place at the bladed weaponry station, leaning against the wall half-asleep as the tributes and their handlers file inside. Once the whole motley crew is assembled, Jack Noir, the Games weapons coordinator, skulks out of the shadows and walks to the center of the facility.

“Listen up, you little fuckers,” he growls. The already quiet room goes silent. Trolls on the whole tend to sneer at humans, but no one has ever questioned Jack’s status as a badass. The huge facial scar and missing eye might have something to do with it. His habit of stabbing anything that moves might contribute, too.

Jack gestures around the room with his trusty stabbing-knife.

“Your handlers have likely already bored you half to death with speeches about training and tactics. If they haven’t, you’ve got a shitty handler and you’re probably fucked. I’m not rehashing shit that most of you have already heard. Today is your first of the whole three days you get to train, so use it wisely. If you’ve got a preferred weapon, great, I don’t care. You may not have that weapon—or _any_ weapon—when you’re in the arena. So pick shit up and learn how to fucking use it. Resourceful players survive. One-trick ponies don’t.”

And just like that, he’s done, slouching to the back of the auditorium to glare at all of you from the shadows. Many of the trolls start whispering amongst themselves.

The first to break away from the group is one of Roxy’s tributes, a tall, slender girl with a long mane of artfully-mussed hair. She heads straight for Jade’s station, oozing confidence. Her departure spurs the others into action, and suddenly everybody is talking and moving between the stations, picking up weapons while their handlers supervise.

The first girl to approach your table amazes the hell out of you by picking up three small blades in each hand and wielding them like claws. She’s quick, too, agile like a born hunter. She’s no match for your super-speed, but it’s still a laudable effort. It helps your opinion of her that she’s sweet. After you’ve given her a few pointers, she lays the knives back down on your table, smiling in a bashful sort of way.

“I had gloves back at my hive that sort of worked like that,” she admits. “I know we’re supurrsed to be learning new stuff, but I guess I just felt kind of homesick.”

Oh god, was that a cat pun? This girl is officially too cute to be here.

You offer her your version of a smile and tell her, “It’s cool. Gotta start somewhere, right?”

The next two to approach are older and want to try out the katanas. They also want to give you trouble.

“Hey, pupa,” says the girl, a brownblood with horns that look like number sevens facing in opposite directions. “Hey. Yeah, you. Why do you get to be so high and mighty, huh? Fucking humans, think they can teach us shit.”

The boy with her is tall and built like John; not super-bulky, but well-muscled all the same.

“Yeah, man, what makes you so fuckin’ special? You lookin’ to get skewered, pupa?”

The girl grins, elbowing the boy in the ribs.

“Betcha I can take his head off in one go.”

“You’re on.”

By the time she’s swung the blade, you’re already behind the boy with your own sword resting comfortably across his throat.

“It’s cute that you guys think you’re badasses,” you say. “But I’m in this line of work for good reason. So. Do you assholes actually want to learn something, or do you just want to keep trying to fuck with me? I’ll give you a hint: you don’t want to keep doing that second one.”

The girl whirls around and bares her teeth at you.

“Fuck you. I can figure out a blade by myself. Come on, Jasill.”

She grabs his arm and marches away. You shake your head and put the katanas up. Ugh. Boring.

“Um,” says a voice to your left. “Uh. I was. Um.”

You turn to see a boy with enormous bullhorns and robot legs. Wow, that is not a thing you see every day. Roxy’s standing behind him, nudging him in your direction and looking encouraging. Oh right, this is one of her tribs. The other one is standing a little ways apart from them, arms folded and eyes rolling.

“Just spit it out, Tavros,” she says. “You want to pick up something sharp so you can completely fail at using it and likely chop off another useless appendage in the process.”

Wow. What a bitch. The face Roxy pulls behind her back requires that you repress a smirk.

“Um,” says Tavros. You raise your eyebrow at him, waiting for him to continue, but he doesn’t.

“You wanna try out a sword, or something?” you ask him.

The girl grins, showing off her pointed canines.

“I know what he wants,” she says in a sing-song voice. She dances over to the display racks and picks up a heavy lance, swinging it in front of Tavros like a pendulum. “Isn’t this it, Tavros? You wanna play at Cavalreaper, don’t you?”

Argh. You hate lances. They really need to move those to Rose’s section; she’s better with fencing swords and lances, things where only one very small point is sharp. If you were in charge of things, you’d totally re-label your station “Slice-and-Dice Weapons” and hers “Stabbing Weapons.”

Tavros blushes, looking away.

“Um. No. I. I don’t.”

“Liar,” the girl says. She swings the lance in his direction and tries to poke at him with it. “Pupa Pan wants to spread his wings and try using a real weapon! Right, Tavros? Right? Right?”

Tavros dodges another swing of the lance, looking like he very much wants to skitter behind Roxy and hide. You can’t say you blame the guy; this girl’s off her nut.

“Um, Vriska, I think you should, um, stop. Please.”

Vriska tosses the lance from hand to hand, grinning.

“Hehe. This thing is actually pretty fun! Think I’ll keep it for myself. Unless, of course, you wanna jump for it.”

She holds the lance straight up over her head, smirking, a clear challenge. Tavros just looks pained. You look at spindly stick-girl Vriska and the muscle-bound kid with robot legs and two weapons for headgear.

“Dude,” you say. “Just take it from her.”

Vriska waggles her eyebrows.

“Yeah, Tavros. Just take it from me.”

Much to your frustration, Tavros takes a step back

“I. Would rather not.”

“Why, pupa? Scared I’ll snap your spine again?”

Whoa. Well. That’s some personal history you never needed to know about. Why are troll kids so scary? And homicidal?

Oh wait. Culture.

Vriska finally gets bored with terrorizing Tavros and flits off to a nearby station to look at crossbows. Tavros lingers, shuffling his robot legs like he’s not used to them.

“You wanna try out the lance, man?” you ask.

He shakes his head, then shifts his eyes left, right, then left again, making sure that Vriska is out of hearing range.

“Don’t tell her,” he says, very softly, “but I already know how to use it.”

“You mean to tell me you don’t trust her with that information?” you say. “I’m shocked, truly.”

“Um. I think, that was a case, of, sarcasm?”

You hold in the urge to facepalm.

“Yeah. Your secret’s safe with me, pal. Now go try to learn some other shit and don’t just let her drag you around by the horns.” You pause, reflecting on your last words. “Shit, is that offensive to trolls? No one has ever told me if that’s offensive to trolls.”

Tavros smiles, and it’s the same sweet smile that the girl from earlier had worn, young and still about as innocent as any troll is ever capable of being considering they’re raised to be murder-machines.

“No, it’s not,” he says. “At least, I don’t find it, particularly offensive. But thanks. For your concern, and stuff. That’s kind of surprising. From a human, I mean.”

“That’s me. Full of love and caring for all. Incidentally, I snuggle kittens for charity on the weekends.”

“Um. Okay. Is that, some kind of, human thing?”

This time, you really do facepalm. The guy is hopeless.

“Just…go learn stuff.”

After Tavros leaves, you finally get a suitable workout doing an extended tutorial with dual blades for a small group of rusts and browns. Oh, and one indigo, this freakishly tall juggalo kid. You’ve seen the facepaint before, but it’s never stopped weirding you out. All the other kids give the blades a go and take pretty well to your pointers, but when you offer the weapons to the indigo, he just gives you this mild, sort of stoned smile and says, “Nah, brother, I don’t got no use for those. Bitchtits demo, though. It’s like you got motherfuckin’ super-speed, or somethin’.”

You could tell him that well yes, as a matter of fact, you do, but you don’t like to brag. Pff, who are you kidding, you love to brag. You just don’t think this is really the place or the group of people to do it in front of.

You suffice with a shrug and a simple, “Yeah, thanks. Sure you don’t wanna give it a try?”

The indigo keeps smiling, gentle-as-you-please, and shakes his head. This poor guy won’t make it past the first day.

He stays and chats with you for a while after the others have milled away to other stations. He even engages you in a fairly decent rap battle, which you win by default when he zones out in the middle of it. Check that off your list of Weird People Dave Has Dealt With Today.

It’s not long after the juggalo—Gamzee, you found out, but you will always think of him as the juggalo—wanders off that you spot Bro’s tributes headed your way.

You always thought you were on the small side, but looking at Karkat makes you feel like a giant. Well, maybe not exactly a giant, but taller, at least. He’s a good four or five inches shorter than you.

D’aaw.

Terezi isn’t much taller than he is, but she makes up for her lack of height with the most frightening alligator-grin you’ve ever seen.

“Wow, look at the coolkid with his shades on inside,” she says. Karkat makes a derisive sound.

“You mean ‘asshole,’ TZ. Asshole is the word you’re looking for.”

Terezi keeps grinning at you. It’s…more than a little unsettling, you have to admit.

“So, coolkid,” she says, and you guess that’s going to be your new nickname. “Are you by any chance a relation of Mr. Strider?”

You shrug.

“Yeah. He’s my bro.”

Terezi turns her head on one side, her mouth curving into a shape that almost looks like a question mark.

“What is a ‘bro’?”

Why, alongside being scary and homicidal, are troll kids so fucking cute?

“Never mind. Suffice to say, we’re related. So. What do you two want to learn?”

Terezi’s grin gets even bigger. She looks fucking insane (and still somehow adorable).

“We want to learn all the things. All of them.”

“Meh,” says Karkat, hunching his shoulders.

There’s something kind of off about him. He looks uncomfortable, and not in the usual trib-surrounded-by-weapons-and-other-tribs kind of way, though he doesn’t seem to be much of a fan of all the other (and mostly older) kids wandering around. Still, his body language is contained, his gestures limited, like he’s hiding something.

You start showing Terezi weapons. Karkat refuses to participate. You try baiting him, but he just gives you surly responses and hunches further. Terezi pokes fun and banters and outright demands that he try something, but even that fails. You can tell his refusal is upsetting her, so you distract her with some basic kendo lessons.

Which she’s pretty wicked awesome at.

“You got a strifekind?” you ask her between parries.

She laughs her weird laugh, the one that sounds like _hehehehehe_.

“Not exactly,” she says. “But I _was_ highly skilled in the art of cane drubbings.”

“Cane drubbings? That’s a new one.”

“That is because I am a unique and beautiful snowflake. And also used to be blind.”

“Yeah, I heard that.”

She feints and nearly gets a blow in. You’re impressed.

So impressed you almost don’t notice that the girl who’d tried to kill you earlier is back, and she’s brought friends.

And they’re all crowding around Karkat.

Uh-oh.

You stop Terezi mid-swing and put both weapons away. She looks alarmed when she sees the group and tries to dash forward, but you catch her arm, shaking your head, and move quietly toward them.

“—freak of an ancestor won’t help you, you know,” says the girl. “He was pathetic in his Games and I bet you’ll be the same.”

“Fuck off,” Karkat says.

The girl shoves his shoulders, baring her teeth.

“What’d you say, mutie?”

The yellowblood boy, Jasill, gives Karkat a reproachful look.

“Better not piss off Himara, man. She’ll gut you first chance she gets.”

“I’m trembling,” Karkat snaps. “Truly.”

“Doesn’t look like the mutant knows his place,” says another girl. This one has an airy, almost dreamy way of speaking and glossy hair that hangs to her waist. Her horns are shaped like the bird foot on the inside of a peace sign. The cute cat-girl’s district partner, the blueblood with the broken horn, stands next to peace-sign horns, looking strangely perturbed by the whole scene.

Karkat makes a disgruntled sound.

“Oh yes, hail to the almighty fucking caste system,” he spits, and for a second, you hear a more acerbic version of Kankri. “A whole lot of fucking good it’s done all of us.”

“Karkat,” hisses the boy with the broken horn. “Silence. Your lewd language and anti-Imperialist diatribes will not be—”

“Hey,” says Himara, sharp and loud. “How is it you know his name?”

The boy with the broken horn begins to sweat.

“Yeah,” Jasill chimes in. “You two chums, or somethin’?”

“I—”

“Of course we’re not friends, fuckass,” Karkat snaps. “Please, like I’d associated with a bigoted, sweat-greased asshole like him. Obviously he knows my name because unlike you stupid fuckers, he actually paid attention to one of the million fucking news broadcasts _announcing our goddamned names and districts_ , you useless bunch of twits!”

The sweating blueblood shifts away from the rest of the group during the monologue, twining an arm around the cat-girl as she rushes up to him and starts whispering questions in his ear.

“Better close your flap if you don’t want to get hurt, pipsqueak,” Jasill tells Karkat.

“Suck my bulge, asswipe.”

The girl with the peace-sign horns lunges forward and seizes Karkat by the back of the neck, forcing his spine to bend forward, her soft voice growing harsh.

“Bow to your superiors, you piece of _filth_.”

The others laugh. God, the caste system is so icky. You go to break things up but catch sight of Bro standing to one side, just watching. Analyzing. He’s waiting to see what’s going to happen. After quashing your knightlier instincts, you decide to do the same.

“Shouldn’t have even crawled out of the caverns alive, pupa,” sneers one of the boys. “Who’d you blow to make it this far without getting culled, huh?”

“Please,” Karkat grates out, and the word does something to your stomach, makes it turn strangely. You take another step forward to help, but stop when Karkat continues.

“Please,” he says again. “I don’t have a weapon. I didn’t take one off the table. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes,” and here he looks up, eyes wild, his voice dropping about an octave, “if you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all.”

It’s a pretty awesome line from a little guy completely surrounded by older, bigger, and more heavily-armed trolls. Of course they nearly laugh him out of the room.

Which is the point when he says, “I warned you,” and grabs a sickle off your display rack.

You have to hold Terezi to keep her from running into the fray. By the time you turn back around, Karkat has planted his foot in Jasill’s stomach and kicked him onto his back. He ducks Himara’s swipe and rams his nubby-horned little head straight into her chest, knocking her down, as well. The long-haired girl catches the curve of his sickle with a knife, jerking the weapon out of his hand. She produces a second knife and advances fast, making Karkat dive to one side. The second boy grabs at his leg, trying to unbalance him. He gets a kick in the face for his trouble. The girl rushes Karkat again, this time getting a good slice in on the arm he throws up to defend his face.

They’re drawing a bigger crowd. You know you can break it up if things get out of control. Hell, you should probably break it up now. But your tactical side (the one whose inner voice sounds a lot like Bro) is interested to see things play out. Plus, it’s a good demonstration for the other tribs.

You come to a conclusion very quickly: Karkat Vantas is a fucking hurricane. You wouldn’t say he has no technique so much as his technique is all over the place. He kicks like a martial artist and bounces like a boxer and swings his sickle like it’s a particularly large knife that just happens to be attached to his arm. If he gets knocked down, he gets right back up all the more pissed off for it. Bro always told you not to fight angry, but you’re starting to wonder if that was actually good advice. ‘Angry’ seems to be Karkat’s permanent state of being, and he’s holding his own just fine.

You think it’s going to get ugly when the girl manages to pin him on the floor by the throat. She raises one of the knives and aims for his eye.

The blow doesn’t connect. Instead, there’s a blur of movement from Karkat’s sickle-holding arm, and then the girl falls back with a shriek, clutching at her gashed mouth while blue blood dribbles from between her fingers. She moves her hand and snarls with the non-sliced half of her mouth, blood all over her teeth.

Before she can leap on him and take revenge, someone bellows, “Enough!” with all the delicacy of a falling wall of bricks. Jack Noir walks through the cluster of staring trolls and looks down at the brawling contenders. Or maybe he’s glaring. It’s hard to tell with that guy.

“Nice dual. Very cute. My advice: save it for the fucking Games.” He wanders away muttering, “Idiots,” not quite under his breath. When he doesn’t hear anyone moving behind him, he turns back around to face the crowd, and this time he’s definitely glaring.

“Well? Get back to learning useful shit, you lazy little bastards!”

It breaks the stillness. The crowd disperses, chatter, gossip, and squabbling breaking out among the witnesses. You realize you’re still holding Terezi’s arm and let go of it. She doesn’t seem to take any notice. Instead, she stares at Karkat like she’s never seen him before. He notices and stares back, and you can pretty much feel the teen drama oozing between them. Then he looks down at his bleeding arm and slaps a hand over it, trying to hide the blood color that gained him so much attention in the first place.

Terezi sets her jaw and marches up to him. Karkat gives her a wary look, like he thinks she’ll turn on him. Instead, she rips the sleeve off her Imperial-issue training sweatshirt and bandages his arm with it, leaning her forehead against his. You see his lips form the words, “I’m sorry.”

The rest of training session passes with relatively little incident after that.

When you leave the complex and head for home, your head hurts and your stomach aches and it takes everything you have to tell yourself not to give a shit about all these kids with their messed up little lives about to end, but all you can do is picture Karkat and Terezi with their foreheads resting together, all stupid and soft and in love, and think the word _unfair_.

*

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\--chronologyPythoness [CP] has opened a private chat with empathicExile [EE] [moderator] \--

CP:  Have you heard?

CP:  About your boy

CP:  Cronus was watching today

CP:  He says

CP:  Karkat is a killer

CP:  I knew this

CP:  Knew from first time I saw him

CP:  Full of power

CP:  Full of rage

CP:  Monster

CP:  Annihilator

CP:  Are you proud?

CP:  He knows the truth

CP:  Knows in the end

CP:  All comes to nothing

CP:  That is why he fights to stay alive

CP:  Fights for his girl

CP: Fights for thrill of fighting

CP:  Knows his true nature and embraces it

CP:  Does what he wants

CP:  Says what he wants

CP:  Takes what he wants

CP:  If not now, when?

CP:  Death is the end

CP:  Then nothing

CP:  That is why he will kill

CP:  Because he will not accept the nothing until he dies

CP:  Because he will not live like you

CP:  Alive and full of nothing

CP:  Doing nothing

CP:  Living corpse

CP:  Waste of breath

EE:  Please.

EE:  Just go away.

CP:  >:]

**Karkat: Become the Spectacle**

By the time you leave the training facility, you have a three-and-a-half hour window between chow time and your time slot for your interview on the _Goodnight, Alterniearth_ show. This window mostly includes Kanaya and Porrim running around and fussing about how they don’t have nearly enough time to get you and Terezi ready. You remind them that it could be worse: you could be from District One and have the first slots on the show. Kanaya looks practically faint at the thought. You pity Nepeta and Equius for what their fashion team must be putting them through right now.

They put you in white and red again, but don’t bother with all the costumey pretension of the Opening Ceremonies. Terezi wears a simple white sundress paired with a red sash and red shoes. You find yourself in white slacks, a fitted white t-shirt, and a red vest.

“Tonight is about letting the audience get to know you,” Porrim says as she combs your hair. “They’ve seen you make a dramatic entrance. Now it’s time for them to see _you_.”

“If they were really seeing me,” you say, “I’d be a lot dirtier.”

Porrim just smiles.

She and Kanaya accompany you to the television studio with Mr. Strider. You sit in the back of the limo across from Terezi, tuning out the barrage of advice to watch her watching the gold-silhouetted buildings of the Capitol out the window as you pass them by. The city seems softer by night. You don’t know what to make of that thought and put it away with other things you have no use for.

The talk show has already started by the time you arrive at the studio. Porrim gives you a last going-over in the backstage area.

“Chins up,” she tells both of you. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Just remember: Aranea Serket is your friend. She’s here to help you look good. She knows what questions to ask. Just answer them as honestly as is wise. Let the world see a glimmer of the real you. That’s what they’re here for.”

On one of the television screens in the back room, you see the live feed of Tavros smiling shyly into the cameras, talking to a woman who looks like a sweeter version of Vriska. Before your hive burned down, you used to fall asleep to the loquacious host of _Goodnight, Alterniearth_ , along with every other young troll with access to a T.V. Your stomach goes fluttery at the thought of meeting her in person. Aranea Serket has been a household name for as long as you can remember, famous for her television program and featured in schoolfeeding modules, informational brochures, and public service announcements. Vriska always loved to boast about having a celebrity ancestor. You wonder how that interview went.

You’re hustled into the wings at the very tail end of Tavros’s interview. You’re too anxious to pay attention other than to notice that he’s talking in almost complete sentences. Aranea Serket must be magical.

Terezi’s interview will be first. She’s staring straight ahead, breathing steadily. She looks so calm. You wish you could be that put-together.

“They’re here to see the real me, huh?” she asks. Mr. Strider nods. Terezi’s mouth hardens into a flat line. Her fingers go to the bow of her sash, unlooping it from her waist.

“Terezi, what are you doing?” Kanaya hisses, but Porrim calms her with a hand on her arm.

Tavros has exited the other side of the stage. Oh god oh god oh god oh god…

“And now, our first tribute from District Four,” Aranea Serket is saying, “Terezi Pyrope!”

The audience cheers.

And you watch, slack-jawed, as Terezi reties her sash around her eyes like a blindfold and marches onstage.

The cheering peters out, replaced by a stunned hush. You get as close to the stage as Mr. Strider will let you get, craning your neck. You can see Aranea’s startled expression, though it quickly resolves into a somewhat puzzled smile.

“Why, Terezi,” she says, “what an…interesting ensemble you’re wearing. Did your fashion team let you dress yourself?”

Nervous laughter from the crowd. Even watching her from the back, you can tell that Terezi is grinning, and you know how she’ll reply before the words actually leave her mouth:

“Oh, Miss Serket! How could you say that to a blind girl?”

She gets real laughter this time, then a long clapping interlude so deafening that Aranea has to wait for them to finish before she can begin the interview. Terezi drops a polite little curtsy to the audience before finding her seat with unfaltering steps. Aranea watches her, shaking her head and smiling with what is either well-feigned awe or maybe the genuine thing itself.

“Remarkable,” she says. “You can’t see through that blindfold at all?”

“Not a bit!”

“Amazing,” says Aranea. “Isn’t she an incredible girl, everyone?”

That elicits screams from the crowd. You’re pretty sure you hear someone call out, “Marry me, Terezi!”

“Now, how is it you lost your sight?” Aranea asks.

“Oh, just an embarrassing bit of FLARP drama gone wrong,” Terezi says, waving a dismissive hand. Wherever Vriska is, you hope she’s boiling on the inside. “Best thing my FLARP partner ever did for me, really. I mean, how many people do you know who can smell colors?”

More laughter. They love her. They’ll eat up anything she says.

“Not many,” Aranea says, laughing along. “Then I take it you’re unhappy to have your sight restored?”

You hold your breath. You can see Mr. Strider and Porrim and Kanaya doing the same thing.

_Don’t piss off the Empire, don’t piss off the Empire, don’t—_

“Oh, I wouldn’t look a gift hoofbeast in the flap,” Terezi says, and you breathe, all of you breathe. “It definitely has its perks.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” Terezi says, and her voice turns sly, “it means I get to look at my flush-crush.”

Cue collective _aaaaaaaw’s_ from the audience.

“And I am happy to report that he is a cherry-bomb of _adorable_!”

Oh gog you are so red in the face you could die of it. The audience is whooping and cheering and whistling. Terezi owns them. She is their lord and master. She could make them do anything she wanted.

After the shouting dies down, Aranea asks, “Would you say that being selected for the Games has put any strain on your relationship?”

Terezi puts her hand to her cheek, a parody of bashfulness.

“Miss Serket, we’re not in a quadrant _yet_. But actually, I think being selected as tributes has brought us closer together.”

Your throat swells closed. Kanaya puts a hand on your back.

“Ah, young redrom,” Aranea sighs. “Such passion. Let me pose a personal question, if I may: the kiss you shared during Opening Ceremonies—was it your first?”

You can just barely see the teal blush creep across the back of Terezi’s neck.

“Objection on the grounds of ‘why yes, that is a very personal question!’” she says, and the audience laughs.

“Objection sustained,” Aranea says good-naturedly. “Which leads me to my next topic: I’ve heard rumor that you’re quite the expert concerning legal matters. Any interest in joining the Imperial Legislacerators?”

“All the interest, Miss Serket. All of it.”

“I’m sure they’d be more than happy to have you. Would you care to give us a demonstration of your knowledge?”

“Of course! Subject?”

“Hmmm…” Aranea turns to the audience and calls out, “Is there a Legislacerator in the audience who’d care to pose a question for our guest?”

After a moment, a troll in a business suit stands up out of his seat and adjusts his glasses.

“Year 2409, Imperial Court case #68942123, Capitol v. Harley, set what precedent?”

“Trick question!” Terezi says immediately. “The initial Capitol v. Harley case resulted in a mistrial due to lack of prosecutorial evidence. Upon retrial, however, the Imperial Prosecution successfully posited that in conspiracy-related cases, the defendant can be indicted based solely on circumstantial evidence.”

The Legislacerator adjusts his glasses again. You can’t see his expression, but he sounds appropriately amazed when he says, “That is…absolutely correct.”

The studio erupts into cheers and applause.

“What a talent! Take a bow, Terezi,” Aranea says.

Terezi stands up and bows, low and formal and graceful.

“And sadly, that’s all the time we have,” Aranea goes on, and she really does look sad. “Ladies and gentletrolls, let’s hear your support for Terezi Pyrope of District Four!”

Terezi exits the stage to a din of screaming, waving to them like they’re all her oldest and dearest friends. The applause goes on for thirty solid seconds after she’s disappeared into the opposite wing. You have no idea how you’re supposed to follow that. You find you don’t particularly care.

When the noise lulls enough for Aranea to be heard over it, she calls your name.

For a moment, you’re frozen. Then you feel Kanaya’s hand squeezing yours, and her lips brush your ear as she whispers, “Prove what you came here to prove.”

You square your shoulders and walk out into the lights.

The audience goes bugfuck nuts again. You don’t know if it’s because of your ancestor’s fame or your entrance during Opening Ceremonies, but you tell yourself that for the next five minutes, you will allow yourself to believe that they’re truly on your side.

Aranea Serket smiles at you as you take your seat. All your worry, your boundless fear, melts away. She makes a show of adjust the collar of her blazer, but you watch as her fingers cover her microphone.

“Hello, Karkat,” she says in a low voice. She gives you a private sort of smile, like she’s been waiting a long time to meet you and at last has her chance. You wonder what that’s about.

The moment takes no more than five seconds before it’s over.

As the crowd finally quiets, Aranea begins with, “Karkat Vantas, the enigma of your session. I pride myself on my fact-finding, but you’ve been quite the slippery little fish!”

Oh god. What are you supposed to say to that?

Your mouth answers without your brain’s input:

“I think my friends would describe me as more of a crab than a fish.”

You don’t think it was a particularly funny response, but you get shrieks of laughter from the audience. Jesus, these people think anything is funny.

“Yes, I’ve heard you’re prone to being a little crabby,” Aranea says, chuckling. She gives you a coy smile and asks, “Is there perhaps a kismesis in your quadrants who could appreciate all that crankiness?”

You know she said it just to make you blush. That bitch.

“I’m going to steal Terezi’s response and object on the grounds of ‘you don’t get to ask me any more questions that personal.’”

Laughing from the peanut gallery. Aranea grins, resting her elbow on the arm of her chair and setting her chin in her hand. You feel comfortably uncomfortable in her presence.

“Oh, I see. Should I just let you run the interview, then?”

“Definitely. Because I wouldn’t suck at that _at all_.”

You have the audience eating out of your hand. You’re being your crass, cantankerous self and they love you for it. What the actual fuck is wrong with Capitol people? You can forgive them loving Terezi, who actually possesses an iota of charm. But you weren’t expecting anyone to like you.

“Let me ask you this, then,” Aranea says. “How do you feel about getting to meet your ancestor?”

Your face wants to scowl, but you doubt that would be a good thing to do on national television, especially in regards to the Empire’s precious pet mutant. You force a smile and shrug.

“How does anyone really feel about that?” you say. “I guess I’m nervous.”

You don’t think anyone saw through you.

“I’m sure you two will have all sorts of fascinating things to discuss,” Aranea says. She looks so delighted at the idea of discussion. Gog bless Aranea Serket.

“No doubt,” you say in as flat a tone as you possess. “It will be the discussion to end all discussions, topics to include but not limited to: foreign policy, the melting of the polar ice caps, just what the deal is with airline food, obscure literature of the twenty-second century, what in the hell is a platypus, no seriously, try to look at a picture of one of those things without thinking it was slapped together by a jackass with Photoshop, the finer points of tax law and how many fucks I fail to give about them, and the ethical ramifications of fried Twinkies.”

The audience is having a collective fit over your ability to put a lot of words together at once. You are the god of this interview. It’s you.

“You Vantas boys can certainly string a sentence!” Aranea says. She glances at the teleprompter, then back at you.

“Unfortunately, we only have a little bit of time left. I’d like to make these last few minutes count, so let me ask the burning question that’s no doubt been on everyone’s mind since the lottery: Karkat, you are the first volunteer tribute in recorded history. What prompted you to make such a gesture?”

You stop breathing. All around you, the studio goes quiet, waiting on your response.

_Truth or lie, truth or lie, truth or lie…_

You raise your chin, your face set.

“Obviously you know exactly who my ancestor is,” you hear yourself say. “Well, so did everyone in my district.” You pause, swallow around the lump in your throat. When you next speak, you sound older, like Gamzee sounds sometimes when he’s intent on something. “I’m a known mutant, Miss Serket. Kill or be killed is a game I’m already very familiar with.” 

Utter silence. For once, Aranea Serket isn’t smiling. She just looks pensive and a little sad.

“And do you think you have a chance of winning?”

You give another honest response.

“No idea. But I’m going to try.”

A ghost of Aranea’s usual smile haunts the corners of her mouth.

“You’re quite the survivor, aren’t you?”

You clench your jaw, a small bubble of pride welling up inside you.

“Damn right I am.”

Everything is so still. Then the audience boils over with applause loud enough to rival Terezi’s sendoff. You guess everybody really does love an underdog, as long as their claws are trimmed and they’re dropped into an orderly, controlled environment with no chance of doing anything too terribly radical.

“Ladies and gentletrolls, Karkat Vantas of District Four!”

Over the aural-exploding noise of the spectators, you just barely hear Aranea say, gently, “Goodnight, Karkat.”

You leave the stage so dizzy you almost black out. Behind you, Aranea says, “We’ll resume after the break with the tributes from District Five. For those of you just tuning in, I’m Aranea Serket with _Goodnight, Alterniearth_ presenting this special two-hour broadcast. And now, a word from our sponsors…”

As soon as you’ve made it into the wings, Terezi and Kanaya are both hugging you. You get an arm around each of them and hold on as hard as you can. You hadn’t realized until now that you’re shaking, that you were probably shaking through the entire interview. You just hope that nobody noticed.

The girls practically have to carry you to the backstage area and deposit you on one of the many couches there. You’re breathing too fast and your chest feels too tight. Someone touches a cold, damp cloth to your cheek and tells you to relax.

“Back up, come on, scoot. Give him some space. Deep breaths, kid, nice and slow. There you go. You’re okay. You’re okay. Just ride it out. You did good out there.”

Mr. Strider is sitting next to you, talking you through a fucking panic attack. Weirdly enough, it’s helping. He doesn’t try to touch you except to hold the cold cloth against your forehead. You calm down after a little while and he tousles your hair, but with less head-bruising force than he’d used after Opening Ceremonies.

“You okay now?”

You nod, embarrassed.

“Okay. Ladies, I think it’s safe to converge on him again.”

“Oh, fuck you,” you say weakly as Terezi pounces on you. Kanaya opts to perch beside you and squeeze your still-trembling fingers.

On one of the backstage feeds, you watch Aranea interview the female tribute from District Five, a petite rustblood named Morien. She’s soft-spoken, polite, and ultimately forgettable. Your bloodpusher stutters behind your ribs, however, when it’s time for the next interview.

Gamzee slouches his way onstage, looking almost handsome in an indigo button-down and pants that actually fit him. They haven’t let him wear his face paint, thank god. His hair still curls in every direction, and you smile, private and fond.

You’re too sleepy to hold onto most of the interview, overwhelmed with relief to have your own five minutes in the spotlight over with. At the very end of the time slot, Aranea asks him how he feels to have been selected knowing that he had such a slim chance, considering his caste.

In true Gamzee form, he replies with, “Well, my fine sister, way I see it, it’s a motherfuckin’ miracle.”

You wonder how many censor bleeps the film editors must be using for the home viewers.

Aranea giggles.

“That’s certainly a unique outlook! What makes you say that?”

Gamzee smiles, sheepish and sweet.

“Well,” he says, “this way, I can get my protectin’ on for my motherfuckin’ palebro.”

All your relief vanishes, replaced by a tightly-coiled knot of fear in your stomach.

“A moirail? Do you mean to say he’s here?”

“That would be the gist of it, sister.”

“Who’s the lucky boy, Gamzee?”

_Oh god. Oh no._

“That would be the fierce little motherfucker you just had up here,” Gamzee says. “Karkat.”

Your veins are full of ice water. You stare at the feed. The girls stare at you. So does Mr. Strider, and he doesn’t look happy.

“And I’d just like to get my statement on, for the record,” Gamzee continues, his voice deceptively smooth, “that if anybody decides to up and fuck with him, then I will ruin. That. Motherfucker’s. Day.”

You don’t hear the rest of the interview because Mr. Strider drags you out of the room and into a deserted hallway. He flings you into the opposite wall hard enough to leave you disoriented and gets right up in your personal space, bracing his hands on either side of your head.

“You failed to mention,” he growls, “that you had a moirail. An _indigo_ moirail.”

You try to shove him away. You might as well be trying to shove a brick wall.

“You didn’t ask. All you cared about was my flush-crush on Terezi.”

“And you didn’t think a moirail might be something I should know about? This changes everything, do you understand that?”

Feeling cornered and helpless and angry, you hiss in response.

His hand connects with your cheek. He grabs your jaw, and you fear he’s holding on hard enough to leave bruises.

“I don’t respond well to feral animals,” he snaps, and it stings more than it should. “So why don’t you try using your words?”

You tremble, instinct telling you to claw at his throat and self-preservation telling you to stay very still and do what he wants.

“Yes,” you spit. “I understand.”

“This puts any chance of you and Terezi both winning in serious jeopardy. It’s a complication, and audiences can’t be trusted with that. Now you’re going to have pick who you want to save. So who’s it going to be, kid, your moirail or your matesprit?”

Instinct wins out. You lash your head to one side, duck under his hands, and headbutt his chest, making him stumble back.

“I will _never_ choose between them,” you snarl. “Do you understand? Never. I won’t do it, not for you, not for the twice-damned audience, and certainly not for the thrice-damned Empire.”

You pivot on your heel and stalk up the hall to the backstage area. Mr. Strider doesn’t try to follow you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I actually wrote the scene with Terezi using her sash as a blindfold some time ago, and when I saw her do something similar in recent(ish) Homestuck pages, I lol’d pretty hard. ^_^ It just needed to happen, okay? Terezi is the best Lady Justice. She is the law, and the law is not mocked.
> 
> I…also wrote the scene with Aranea before her recent canonical shenanigans, so I will likely have to do some tweaking of her other appearances in this fic for more canon-compliance…jeez, you Serket girls.
> 
> Lastly, I cannot claim credit for Karkat’s “I’m pleading with you with tears in my eyes” line. It’s a modified version of a quote by General James N. Mattis of the U.S. Marine Corps. If you’re interested in reading about the context, check out the hilarious article where I found said quote in the first place: http://www.cracked.com/article_19854_the-6-coolest-things-said-by-soldiers-before-killing-people_p2.html


	6. Tributes: Feel Violated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys! Sorry for the hiccup in my usual update schedule; shitty week has been shitty. >:/ But hey, it's over now, at least, and I think this update is a little on the long side, so maybe that makes up for the pause?

**Past Gamzee: Fall Desperately Pale**

Midway through your evening sopor pie on your fifth wiggling day, you get the wicked whimsy to go on a beachside stroll, and when the whimsy calls you, you know to up and follow it. You leave the pie on the table and walk on out the door, digging your toes into the sand as you mosey along the shoreline.

Not more than a few minutes down from your hive, you hear a sound that doesn’t belong. It ain’t ocean, and it ain’t gulls, and it ain’t wind. But things get real quiet again when you get your listen on, so you shrug it off and keep on walking.

A few more steps and you hear the noise again, closer this time, and you know what it is now. It’s the sound of some motherfucker been too long out in the chill and done got himself bad motherfucking sick, a wet, wheezing cough. You go further up the beach and just happen to get your gander on at one of the big old rocks, and that’s where you find the body.

You think it’s dead at first, and real young on account of how small it is. Four sweeps, maybe, no older. Then it moves, and you put it together with the wheezing noise, and you have a club out of your strife specibus all quicklike just in the case it’s a feral.

When it notices you and scrambles up against the rock, it sure as motherfuck looks feral, dirty and wild-eyed, hair overgrown like weeds and all matted up over its forehead. You take a step forward to get a closer look and it—nope, _he_ , you’re pretty sure—growls at you. It’s the saddest motherfucking thing you ever did hear, quiet and rattly like his growl-box got all worn out and is just about to quit on him.

You put your club away. You could snap this poor starving grub in half if he came at you. But he doesn’t try. He just watches you, pressed up against his rock, like he’s waiting for you to do something. You inch closer and get another weak growl, but he still doesn’t try to attack. This close, you can see that his face and neck and hands are all gashed up. There’s a big slice on his forehead oozing a color you can’t make out in the dark.

He coughs again, and it’s a bad sound, a dying, infected sound. It does funny things to your bloodpusher, hearing that sound and watching him bleed, staring you down clearly thinking he’s about to die.

He’s just so _little_.

You ease down into a crouch and shuffle toward him, holding out your hand.

“Hey, little motherfucker. You okay there?”

“Don’t come any closer,” he rasps, and you pause. He sounds older than you expected, closer to your age. You leave your hand outstretched and smile at him.

“It’s okay, motherfucker. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Bullshit. Think I haven’t heard that one before?”

Obviously his thinkpan’s working. He’s talking, following the things you’re saying. You don’t think he’s actually a feral. Just damn near close, maybe.

“Aw, brother, I’m not about any wicked motherfuckin’ deception. Ain’t got the brains for it, so says everybody. I’m inclined to get my agreement on about that.”

“So I should trust you because you say so and because you claim to be a terrible liar? Yes, logic, you have it, all of it. The logic is yours.”

Jesus, you like him. You like him so much you don’t know quite what to do with yourself. He’s small and hungry and hurt and so very _alone_ , like you, set adrift on this ugly beach like just another piece of trash, but here he is snarking to your face even while he knows how easy you could snap his neck. You find yourself grinning, and you hope it makes you look big and stupid instead of big and scary.

“Nah, motherfucker. I ain’t got none of that, neither.”

You think he relaxes just an eensy, tiny bit. Not much. But you’ll take it.

“How’d you get all beat up like that, little brother? You and the ocean get your fight on?”

He presses back against his rock again, then goes down on hands and knees with another coughing fit. You seize the opening and move in close to him, thump on his back while he coughs until he’s dry-heaving. As soon as he can move again, he tries to crawl away from you.

“Don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t—I said stay—don’t—”

“Just wanna help, motherfucker. Why don’t you come on and let me see you?”

You reach for him to keep him steady. You only notice that he’s got something sharp when it cuts into your sleeve. He lunges at you, following through on the attack.

You let him collide with you and then just roll the both of you over, pinning him to the sand with your weight. He tries to swing the sharp thing at you, but you pluck it out of his hand and toss is aside.

“Come on now, friend, you don’t need to be doin’ none of that shit,” you say. “I ain’t got no violence in mind, motherfucker, so why don’t you just settle.”

He’s flailing, coughing and clawing at you so wild with terror you wonder if maybe you’re using your chucklevoodoos without meaning to.

“Let go—let go, oh god, let go, let me go, fuck you, fuck you fuck you what do you want _what do you want just take it and let me go!_ ”

You don’t know what this motherfucker thinks you’d up and take from him, but the whole thing makes you downright sad.

He’s reopened one of the cuts on his forehead flailing around, and there’s blood just about to run into his eye. You swipe some of it away on your fingers and he goes absolutely still, makes a high-pitched sound that you’ve got no name for, but it makes your chest ache.

There’s just enough moonlight and distant lamplight from your hive for you to make out the color of the blood smeared across your fingers.

You think your oculars have gone funny on you, but no amount of blinking makes the color change.

It’s like somebody took a rustblood and dialed up the saturation, brightened the color until it’s through-and-through pure motherfucking _red_.

“Holy motherfuckin’ Mirthful Messiahs,” you breathe. You’d think maybe you caught a human, but he looks like a troll and he feels like a troll and he fights like a troll.

A troll who bleeds like a human.

You can feel him shaking under you.

“Motherfucker,” you whisper, and touch the gash on his head. “That is an upright motherfucking _miracle_ you’ve got inside you.”

He stares at you, hyperventilating.

“You’re crazy. Stark raving fucking shithive maggots bugfuck nuts. I’m an abomination. Just do whatever awful fucking thing you’re going to do to me, finger-paint with my fucking unnatural guts, drown me in the ocean, cut off my fucking fingers for trophies, I don’t care just _get it over with and let me die!_ ”

You shock both of you by papping his face. He blinks. You blink. And then you pap his cheek again. And again. And it feels like you should never do anything else but lie here and stroke this boy’s battered face.

“What are you doing?” he asks after a long time. His voice is strangled. You can hear that he wants to cry but isn’t letting himself.

“Not really sure, best brother,” you admit. You curve your hand around the side of his face and he makes a sound, an almost-whimper, and you wonder if anyone’s ever put their hands on him without some harm in mind.

“Shhh,” you say, and that’s when he loses it. You gather him up in your arms and it’s so easy and he’s nice and snug and warm against you. He bawls into your shirt, unrestrained, loud. You think he’s needed this for a long time, and the rawness of it makes you tear up, too. You cradle the back of his head in your hand and it fits there, like it was always meant to fit there, like you’ve been missing this part of yourself up until right this fucking minute.

“Why?” he chokes out. “Why are you—I don’t—I don’t understand—”

“Me neither, brother,” you say. “But can you up and tell me it don’t feel right?”

He sniffles into your shoulder, then wraps his skinny arms around your neck and clings.

“What the fuck am I doing?” he mutters.

“Ain’t gotta think about it, motherfucker. It’s all okay. All gonna be okay.”

“How do you know that?”

“Dunno, motherfucker. Just got a sense for these things.”

You hold onto him until his breathing evens out, then sit up, pulling him up with you. You dust the sand off his back and out of his hair while he just stares at you, puzzled.

“What’s your name, little brother?”

He pauses for a moment, then tells you, “Karkat.”

You smile. It’s the best motherfucking name you ever heard.

“It is a motherfuckin’ pleasure to get my meetin’ on with you, Karbro. Name’s Gamzee.”

Karkat scrubs at his dirty face.

“Well. Uh. Hi, Gamzee. This has been. A thing.”

You stand up and offer him your hand. After a long hesitation, he takes it and allows you to help him to his feet. He totters so bad you just scoop him up in your arms. He makes an indignant sound

“Chill, motherfucker,” you tell him. “You don’t weigh nothin’. I got you.”

“I can walk,” he grouses.

“Sure, motherfucker,” you say, and carry him back up the beach.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“Figured I’d take you home. You’ve got some mad nasty infection, sounds like. Can’t be lying around outside in the cold.”

“You barely know me and you want to take me back to your hive? I stand by my previous statement: you’re shithive maggots.”

“Yeah, sounds about right.”

“Great. My new friend is a nutjob.”

The minute you get him inside your hive and set him on his feet, he takes one look around and says, “This place is a disaster.”

You shrug.

“I ain’t picky about keepin’ nothin’ tidy.”

He inspects a pile of dirty laundry and wrinkles his nose.

“This is a fucking biohazard.”

“You don’t smell so great yourself, motherfucker.”

He makes a dismissive gesture.

“I live like this because I have to. Jesus, cleaning your hive is a basic life skill. If you can’t perform one of the simplest tasks in this thing known as taking fucking care of yourself, how the hell are you going to fare as an adult?”

All the while he’s talking, he’s picking up your laundry and loading it into the overturned hamper you’d left in the corner for you-don’t-recall-what-reason. This should annoy you, some stranger coming into your hive and critiquing your hygiene and touching your things, but with Karkat, it just feels…right. Good, even. Like he’s not doing it to be mean even though he’s trying to seem like he wants to be mean.

“You gonna do my laundry, motherfucker?”

“Damn right I am. Obviously someone needs to, because none of this shit is currently wearable, and you need to wear clothes. Nobody needs to see a naked juggalo.”

He tries to pick up the laundry basket and stumbles. You take the clothes out of his hands and set them on the floor, take his spindly little wrists and hold them as gently as you know how. He twitches, skittish, eyes you like he’s expecting you to tighten your grip. There are bruises all ‘round his wrists where somebody else must have done just that.

“Later, motherfucker,” you say, your voice soft. “Didn’t bring you in here to be my butler.”

Another wary look.

“What _did_ you bring me in here for?”

“Just want to get a brother cleaned up a little,” you say. Your thumb traces a bruise on the inside of his wrist, and he shudders. You swallow the anxious lump in your throat and mumble, “And maybe you’d let me hold you again later.”

Seeing his shocked codfish face has just made the list of your favorite things.

“Why would you _want_ to?”

There’s disgust in the question. You’re pretty sure it’s not directed at you.

You hold both his hands in yours and take a knee in front of him. He stares at you, wide-eyed.

“Karkat. Motherfucker. Best friend. I don’t know many things,” you say. “But I do know that you did not fall half-dead on my beach for no motherfuckin’ reason. This is divine motherfuckin’ righteous _fate_ , best beloved, this is love for which the only words are _purest fucking pale_ , and I know I sound pan-shattered, but I swear to you that if you cut me open right this motherfuckin’ second, you would see your name carved on my very bones.”

He’s crying again, diluted streaks of red staining his cheeks. You think maybe you’re coming on too strong, you’re scaring him, the best thing you’ve ever found is going to walk out of your life and you’ll be alone again and all the worse off for it because you will have felt, just for a few minutes, how good it is to have someone else be a part of you.

“Fucking useless idiot,” Karkat whispers, his voice cracking. “You—you think we can just—what, fall pale at first sight? You think the world works that way? It doesn’t! It doesn’t work that way, the world isn’t fair, and if I’ve learned anything in my very short, pathetic existence, it’s that I don’t get to have nice things, and you’re—you’re a nice thing, you’re a nice, stupid, pitiful dingbat who calls the wreck of my genetics a miracle—for fuck’s sake, you’re an indigo, right, you’re a fucking highblood, and I’m not even on the fucking spectrum, I’m a mutant, I’m a freak-show, I shouldn’t even exist , and you want to just—just—sweep me off my feet? I can’t—no one—no one’s ever—oh god damn it, _fuck_ —”

He puts his arms around your neck and sobs. Your arms form a loop around his waist and pull him right up against you.

“Clearly you need someone to look after you, you pan-impaired disaster,” Karkat sniffles. “Where the hell is your lusus?”

“Could ask you the same question, Karbro. This ain’t even your district, am I right? You seem like a motherfucker a long-ass way from home.”

He breaks down crying again.

“I don’t have a home. Not anymore.”

You squeeze your arms tighter around him. You ache so deeply for him that you’re afraid it might break you.

“My lusus ain’t never been much for stickin’ around,” you tell him. “Been nearly a sweep since I saw him last.”

“That’s shitty,” Karkat spits, petting your hair. His fingers catch in the tangles and he pulls back from you, scowling. “So is this rat’s nest you call hair. Do you even own a comb?”

You grin, tugging at his matted bangs.

“Pots and kettles, brother.”

“Excuse: homeless.”

“Tell you what: I’ll let you get your fuss on about my hive and my hair if you let me get my doctor on for you.”

Karkat gives you a mistrustful look, but finally agrees and follows you to your ablution block.

You find out he don’t much care for you pulling at his clothes. At first, you laugh while he flails around trying to keep his torn jeans on. You stop laughing real quick when he screams at you to stop so loud his voice breaks.

You gather him up in your arms again, trying to soothe him.

“Motherfucker,” you tell him, soft as you can, “how can I say this any clearer: I don’t mean you no harm.”

“Th-that’s a double negative,” he stammers. “Doesn’t mean what you think it means.”

“Shh. I don’t mean you _any_ harm. There. That put your pan at ease?”

He shakes so hard his teeth rattle.

“Last highblood to let me in her hive said she just wanted to study me,” he spits. “Then I find out she wants to see what a mutant is built like, if they’ve got all the right bits, if their nerve-endings are wired the same way as a normal troll’s. So she tests it. And then her friends test it. And then their friends—”

He cuts off at the squeeze of your arms. You hold the back of his head again.

“Who were these motherfuckers? You know their names?”

He shakes his head, pressing his face into your chest. It takes a while, but eventually his breathing steadies.

“They’re no different than everybody else I grew up with,” he says.

You kiss the top of his head.

“I’m different.”

“Maybe that’s just what you want me to think.”

You take his face in your hands and make sure he looks at you.

“Best beloved,” you say, “I’m different. Don’t need to hurt you to see that you’re full of motherfuckin’ miracles.”

After a long time, he leans in and kisses your cheek, and from his lips, you take it as a holy blessing.

               

**Present Gamzee: Plot**

You sneak into Terezi’s room real late. She barely even manages a hiss for you. You show a half-hearted fang in return and slouch against the wall. She turns back to her husktop, refusing to acknowledge you for a few moments.

“Well done out there,” she snaps at last. “I didn’t think you’d be so despicable as to try to harm Karkat’s chances to get to me, but apparently I was—”

You kick her chair over. She goes down with an angry squawk, then glares up at you.

“Next time you insinuate,” you say, real quiet-like, “that I would hurt my palebro, much less on account of _you_ , I will feed you your own motherfucking eyeballs. Do we understand each other, Miss Pyrope?”

Her lip curls. She stands up and rights her chair, but doesn’t sit.

“Sure thing, _Mister_ Makara.”

“Think you’re so special I’d use my best brother to get at you? Ain’t even like you’re really in each other’s quadrants.”

That gets you a nasty smile.

“If you don’t think our feelings for each other are a big deal, then why so jealous?”

You snarl low in your throat, a warning.

“Who says tonight was about jealousy?”

“Wasn’t it? There was no reason for you to mention your relationship.”

You lean forward, bracing your hands on the back of her chair. She doesn’t lean away from you. That’s one of the things you’ve always respected and despised about Terezi; she backs down from nothing, foolhardy and brave and self-righteous.

“Seems to me you’ve got it in your head that just because you can fool the cameras into believing you’re mad flushed for him, ain’t nothin’ can touch either of you. But bitter truth is, my sister, it don’t matter one iota to the world how you two feel about each other. Matesprits and moirails get slaughtered all the time in the Games. You two ain’t no exception.”

“There’s a precedent,” Terezi says, but her voice is brittle. “In the human Games—”

“We ain’t human, Terecita. And one exception to the rules is more than Her Imperiousness would like to grant, ever. If you’ll use your motherfuckin’ pan and recall, she don’t much like exceptions.”

You can look at Terezi’s face and know she’s thinking of Karkat, Karkat with his impossible genes and his miserable life. She composes herself again in a hurry and levels a glare at you.

“If the two of us have no chance, then neither do the two of you.”

“I know that, motherfucker.”

“Then why complicate matters by announcing your moirallegience?!”

You think over your next words.

“If no two of us can win,” you say, “then all that’s left to do is show the world the best of the three of us.”

Her eyes scan back and forth over your face, side-to-side and up-and-down, like she thinks she’s missed some tell that isn’t there.

“We have…a common interest,” she says at last.

You nod, slowly. Terezi’s jaw clenches and unclenches, her small hands forming fists before relaxing by her thighs. Then she flings an arm in your direction, fingers straight and lined neatly together.

“Then we have an agreement?” she says, voice harsh.

You clasp her hand and shake it.

 

**Aranea: Be In Cahoots**

After you’ve gone off the air for the night, you’re not terribly surprised to find Kurloz in your dressing room. You’re just glad he hasn’t rubbed his horrid face paint all over your things.

He arches an eyebrow at you and signs, _Well?_

Just for the hell of it, you play dumb. It’s so very much fun to lord your knowledge over someone.

“Your descendent is certainly something. I think there’s a great deal more to him than meets the eye. You know, I turned up the most interesting things in my research—”

Kurloz scowls at you. You feel suddenly very small and alone, cut off from your microphone, from your fans, here in this enclosed space where no one can see you, and you wonder if any of the viewers are still thinking about you out there ( _no, they’re not, because you’re unimportant, you’re nothing_ ), if anyone realizes how many plans you have ( _no one cares, you’re a nobody in the grand scheme of things, you’re all alone and no one sees you and no one loves you_ )—

You pull off one of your heels and throw it at Kurloz.

“That was unnecessary,” you snap, more breathlessly than you’d like. Your legs are still shaking. Kurloz smirks.

_Your smug bullshit grinds on me. You know what I came here for. Tell me about the mutant._

You toss your hair over your shoulder and hope you look chilly.

“Fine. Though I don’t see why you’re so interested in a first impression.”

_First impressions make the world go ‘round, fine sister._

You roll your eyes.

“If I read him correctly—and I assure you I did—he was honest,” you say. “He’s a relatively transparent personality. All the bluster is just a shallow defense mechanism. The crowd certainly loves him.”

_They love him because he looks like Kankri. That’s not enough._

“They love him because he is what he is,” you say, your tone sharp. “Crass but caring, resilient yet brittle, a particularly determined, stubborn, foulmouthed little outcast. They hang on his every word because he is somehow like them, but not like them at all. Perhaps Kankri’s fame has made the audience more receptive to Karkat, but can you really think of two more different personalities?”

_Fair enough._

You huff, removing your earrings.

“Would you like a copy of my research? I did withhold a good deal of information when we were on-air.”

Kurloz’s stitched mouth curls up into a Jack-o-lantern smile.

_Not necessary. I have my own information on him._

“Of course you do.”

He glides toward the door.

“Kurloz,” you say, and he pauses, turning back to you with his eyebrows raised in a mockery of polite curiosity. You’ve known him long enough to know that there’s very little genuine politeness left in Kurloz Makara.

“You do realize you may not get the outcome you want,” you say quietly. “You have no control over the outcome of the Games. The other contenders—”

_Are not my motherfucking concern. Have a little faith, sister._

Your voice carries an embarrassing waver when you next speak.

“Aren’t you bothered at all that your—that _our_ —descendants will be out there, too?”

Kurloz lifts his shoulders in an elegant shrug, but you think you see his jaw tighten a bit (though perhaps you only imagined it).

_Some sacrifices are necessary._

You blink and he’s gone. You stare into your dressing room mirror for a long time afterward, waiting for your nerves to stop jangling, waiting until the woman in the mirror stops looking like a frightened grub. You take deep breaths. You are Aranea Serket. You are Aranea Serket, beloved idol of Alterniearth, matesprit to the First Royal Heiress, academic extraordinaire and secret badass.

You are Aranea Serket, and you think you might be in over your head.

 

**Dave: Be Awake**

Night in the compound gets so horribly quiet sometimes, so much so that the fear of that silence leaks into your muscles and makes your arms twitch and your legs kick as you turn over and over in bed, sleepless. You used to go to Bro on nights like this, and one in every ten times he’d pick you up and let you doze in his lap, warm and safe. You’re too old for that now, of course, so you lie in bed with your muscles all tied in knots and your mind chasing itself in complex hangman’s knots.

Tonight is so quiet you’ve been awake for hours and hours, so overwrought that you jump straight out of bed at a sound outside your door. It’s so quiet that you think for a minute you must have just imagined it, but then it comes again, a muffled hiccup. You creep to your door and push it open, silent on your feet like Bro taught you as you move toward the common area.

Roxy is sitting on the floor, surrounded by a small army of bottles and holding a pillow over her face. You wonder if she’s trying to suffocate herself until you hear her hiccup again and realize no, that is not the weirdest suicide attempt ever but is, in fact, your mother crying. You have absolutely no idea what to do.

“Uh,” you say, shuffling closer. “Hey. Roxy. So. Is there, like…anything I can…do you want a tissue?”

Roxy raises her head from the pillow, weaving, her eyes blotchy and makeup smeared all over her face.

“Davey—babby, no, g’back t’bed, you shouldn’t hafta see this…”

You would really like to go back to bed. But then you’d continue lying there awake, knowing she was out here crying. Alone. And you would feel like a huge asshole, because you would _be_ a huge asshole.

“Nah, it’s cool,” you say. You clear away some of the bottles with your foot and sit down in the space beside her. “Somebody should probably hang out with you when you’re sad.”

You can see her face go all wibbly, and you know what you’re in for but don’t quite have time to lean out of the way as she lurches at you and gets you in one of her famously spine-crippling hugs.

“I’m a terr’ble mother,” she bawls. You’re pretty sure she just drooled on your shoulder a little. You pat her back, awkward as the poorly-socialized kid you are.

“No, you’re not. You’re cool.”

“’M not cool, Davey. This—this is not cool. Snotting all over your kids and drinking ‘til you pass out an’ making ‘em clean up your puke’s not cool. I am _so_ not cool. I am the not-coolest.”

“Pff. That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Thas ‘cause ‘m drunk. I don’ make any sense. You guys, like, you never see when ‘m not like this an’ how much more sense I make.” She sniffles into your hair and breathes too loud in your ear and repeats, “’M a terr’ble mother.”

“Come on, don’t say that.”

“Is true, though. A mother’s s’posed to pertect her babies, but I can’ even do that.”

“It’s cool. We’re super-kids, remember? We don’t need someone to protect us.”

Roxy leans back and gives you a look so sad and lost you feel your throat trying to close up. She puts her hand on your cheek.

“Everybody deserves t’have that, though,” she whispers. “Me an’ Dirk didn’t have that—an’—an’ things go bad so fast you don’ even relize you’re fucked an’ there’s no one t’help ‘til s’too late, an’ I never—never wanted—”

She breaks down crying so hysterically you can’t understand her anymore. You keep on patting her back because you really don’t know what else to do.

“’M so sorry, babby,” you finally make out. “We—we jus’ didn’t know how else to stop her—so sorry—you shouldn’t—shouldn’t have to be raised like soldiers—s’too much, too much pressure, s’not fair—shouldn’t be—not your job to save us—‘s impossible…we can’t expect you—can’t beat her…”

You hug her again, your chest very tight.

“It’s cool,” you say again, but your voice is rough. “We’re all totally onboard with the plan. It’s fine.”

“S’called condishing. No. Condis— _conditioning_. How’re you s’posed to think diff’rently about something if you never even been told there’s another option?”

You don’t know what to say to that, so you don’t say anything.

**Kankri: Mend Your Bridges**

Aranea comes to your apartment in the wee hours of the night after she’s off the air. You think she looks pale, but before you can comment, she takes one look at you, tuts, and bustles inside to make you tea. You ask her if she’s taking pointers from Porrim now, which makes her giggle.

“Goodness, no,” she says. “But I thought you could use someone to talk to. Heaven knows I could.”

You follow her into the kitchen, a little self-conscious to have her see you in just your pajamas and house sweater.

“And here I thought it was your job to talk,” you say, leaning in the archway. “Forgive me for assuming you’d be tired of it.”

Aranea shoots you a scandalized look over her shoulder.

“Oh, Kankri. You, of all people, should really know me better than that.”

You almost smile. She takes two mugs of tea and sets them at the table. As she settles in across from you, the steam from her tea fogs her glasses, turning the lenses opaque and obscuring her eyes from view. The effect is disquieting.

You drum your fingers against the side of your teacup.

“Was there something you wished to discuss with me?”

Aranea smiles up at you, a strange, over-bright smile. It looks forced.

“Funny, isn’t it? Having our descendants running around out there together?”

Your throat tightens.

“I’d prefer not to dwell on it, personally.”

“Oh, of course. Very upsetting business.”

She lapses into silence. And as is your relationship with most silences, you feel compelled to break it.

“Is something the matter? You seem upset. Was it talking to your descendent this evening? Because I’m sure that must have been so terribly jarring for the both of you. The pressure of meeting a descendent is quite high enough, and to do so for the first time under the prying eyes of millions of viewers, I can only imagine—”

You stop when she giggles and frown at her.

“What?”

“That’s what I came here for,” she says. “The old Vantas word-wall.”

You sigh.

“Well, I’m glad to have brought you some sense of nostalgia, at least.”

Aranea leans her chin on her palm.

“Mmm. We don’t see much of each other anymore, do we?”

You clasp your hands around your cup.

“It’s been that way for quite some time,” you say, more honestly than you’d intended. At Aranea’s wobbly expression, you rush to continue with, “But of course we’re both very busy in our adult lives, and this is just the natural course of things oftentimes with friendships. I certainly wouldn’t want to trigger you by friend-shaming.”

Aranea has a hand over her mouth, but you can just see the edges of a smile around it.

“Oh my. Kankri, I do believe I’ve missed you.”

The sentiment wakes a warm sort of fondness in you that you thought you had lost entirely. The only people who tell you they’ve missed you these days are your repeat clients.

The thought snuffs out your small flicker of comfort and leaves you feeling miserable again.

“Aranea, may I ask you something, if it’s not too forward? Something about…about Karkat.”

Aranea shrugs.

“I don’t see the harm.”

You knot your fingers together.

“What he said about…being a known mutant,” you say, faltering. “Because of me. He said—kill or be killed—is it…did he actually mean—do you think perhaps it was a young troll’s bravado? Or do you think he really…”

You trail off, hands fluttering to the table, soft and ineffectual. Aranea’s expression is guarded.

“I didn’t get the impression that he was bluffing.”

You put your face in your hands.

“It’s my fault.”

“Kankri,” Aranea says. “You didn’t choose to be famous. How were you to know? You can’t be held responsible for consequences you couldn’t predict and ultimately had no control over.”

You press your fingers against you throbbing temples. It’s hard to breathe and you’re shaking like you have a fever. You need your pills, but you would never let Aranea know that you’re on medication.

“Are you alright?”

Your throat is too tight to answer.

You startle when she takes your hand and squeezes it. You’re grateful that she lets go quickly.

“I’m aware that I’ve been somewhat absent over the sweeps,” she says, “and that you’ve been left rather abandoned by our group of friends. I suppose I hadn’t realized…well, I just…I hadn’t realized.”

“Realized what?” you echo once you find your voice again. “That I’m a pathetic, washed-up disaster who’s utterly useless to everyone? That I’m little more than an animated corpse anymore?”

“That sounds like Damara talking,” Aranea says. “And if that’s the case, then just remember: as far as Damara’s concerned, we’ll all walking corpses. Since when do you take your life philosophy from her? That’s not the Kankri I remember.”

You allow yourself a brief moment of bitterness and laugh. It’s an unkind sound.

“The Kankri you remember was _insufferable_. That was what you all used to call me, wasn’t it?”

You can tell by the nature of the silence that you’ve hurt her.

Finally she says, “We were all so young then.”

“I’m sorry,” you murmur. After a pause, you add, “I _was_ insufferable.”

Aranea chuckles.

“Weren’t we all, in our own unique ways?” She lowers her voice and touches your back. “If you need a friend, I’d like to think you could still count on me for that.”

You flinch from her touch, but she doesn’t seem offended and simply removes her hand without comment.

“I’ll just be on my way,” she says, heading for the front door.

“Aranea,” you call after her. She pauses, turning back to look at you. You can’t hold the gaze, too ashamed at your childishness. “I do still think of you as a friend. For whatever it’s worth.”

You glance up just in time to catch her smile.

“Please take care of yourself, Kankri.” 

You sip your tea, nodding.

“Kindly send my regards to Meenah.”

“You can send them yourself, you know. I think Meenah likes you more than she’d openly admit.”

“Nonsense. She finds me irritating and overbearing.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like you. And besides, things change. People change.” She lowers her voice, and you can hear the discontent in it. “I certainly have.”

Again, you find yourself unable to meet her gaze.

“Thank you for the visit,” you say at last. “Goodnight, Aranea.”

“Goodnight to you too, most darling Insufferable.”

You glare at her as she shoots you a grin and a rather saucy wink on her way out.

 

**Karkat: Quietly Freak Out**

You are not good at quietly freaking out. Some might say you are not good at quietly doing anything.

“I’m sorry, my aurals must be malfunctioning: it’s time for _what_?!”

You’re glad, at least, that Terezi looks equally alarmed.

Mr. Strider, meanwhile, just looks impassive. What else is new? You fucking hate this guy.

“It’s time to go the labs to have your genetic material collected,” he repeats, slowly, like he’s talking to particularly pan-impaired wigglers. “C’mon, did you seriously not know this was a thing?”

“But we’re only six,” Terezi argues. “We wouldn’t have to face the Collection Drones until—”

“These aren’t normal circumstances, kiddos,” Mr. Strider interrupts. “Your normal lives ended the day you got selected as tributes. Just think of it like this: it’s the Capitol’s way of throwing you a bone. Sure, you might die in the Games, but at least your genes will have a fighting chance in the slurry.”

You do not feel better. Instead, you just feel freaked out and vaguely sick.

“But…what if…it’s not like Karkat has a kismesis, so—”

“Again, you guys won’t be doing things traditionally,” Mr. Strider says.

You give Terezi a dubious look.

“Why did you say it like that? You don’t have a kismesis either, do you?”

Terezi opens her mouth, looking guilty. Mr. Strider snaps his fingers in your face.

“Hey. No. Lover’s spat later. Going to labs now.”

“Can’t we skip this part?” Terezi asks, but she allows him to herd her into the back of your limo.

“Nope.”

For the first time since your arrival, you sit as far away from Terezi as you can, each of you avoiding looking at the other.

You’re separated when you reach the laboratories, Terezi led by female guards in one direction, you taken by male guards in the opposite direction, just like you were separated before Opening Ceremonies. You bloodpusher stutters over a few beats.

The guards bring you to a small block that resembles the white, sterile examination rooms you’ve only seen in television shows. They leave you with a hospital gown and the order to get changed. You can hear the door lock when they exit.

You put on the gown, for once glad of your small stature; you can pull the ties around your waist tight enough to close the damn thing at the back, and the hem drapes to the middle of your shins. No ass-bearing mini-dresses for you, thanks.

Then you sit on the exam table and wait.

When you hear the lock turning, you curl your knees up to your chest, ready to hiss at whatever comes in.

What comes in is a young seadweller, about your age, you think, with zig-zagging horns and a purple streak in his hair. He doesn’t smile at you, but he doesn’t look at you like you’re a piece of meat, either, which you guess is better than what you were expecting.

“Mmmkay, let’s see what we’ve got here,” he says, pronouncing his w’s and v’s in that peculiar way that only seadwellers can manage. You have no idea if it’s an affected speech pattern of if it’s some kind of natural dialect. He glances over the information on his clipboard, then scowls at it.

“Well that ain’t helpful,” he says, tossing the entire clipboard behind him into the waste bin. He looks at you, adjusting the glasses perched on his nose. “Ain’t got any of your medical history on there. Don’t’cha got any records?”

“No,” you say, cautiously, in case he gets angry and tries to stick you with something. “I’m a mutant. So I basically avoided doctors.”

His eyes go all round and his mouth forms a silent ‘o.’

“Right, yeah, gotcha, that makes sense,” he mutters. “So. Medical history in a nutshell? Any problems that mighta been overlooked? ‘Cause we got all the good technology and shit, fuckin’ science magic here, no kiddin’, so you might as well let us fix you up real good.”

You swallow. Then again.

“Uh. I. What kind of medical history are you looking for, exactly?”

“Any major illnesses?”

You shrug.

“I’ve had pneumonia a couple times, if that counts.”

The seadweller pulls the clipboard out of the waste bin, making a face as he does so, and jots a few things down on what you suppose is your chart.

“Anythin’ funky ‘cause of your mutation?”

You let out a brief, involuntary growl, then slap your hand over your mouth. The seadweller raises an eyebrow.

“Easy, pal.”

“No,” you say. Then, “Not no to you, no to—no to any weirdness because of the mutation. That I know of, anyway.”

He takes more notes.

“Okay. How ‘bout broken bones?”

“Pretty much all of them.”

The pen stops moving. Finally, the seadweller clicks it closed and sets the clipboard aside.

“Pretty much all of ‘em?” he echoes. He looks horrified. You don’t know what to do with that.

“I never exactly kept a running tally, but yeah, somewhere close,” you mutter. The seadweller gapes at you, then clears his throat, trying to look professional again.

“Uh. Alright. That’s—wow. We’ll take some X-rays, make sure everythin’ healed right. Anythin’ else?”

You hesitate. He notices.

“Come on, just spit it out, whatever it is. I promise, I probably heard way more embarrasin’ shit than anythin’ you could tell me. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe the things people can get stuck in their nooks.”

You grimace. He grins.

“I know, right? There was this one guy—”

“I don’t want to know.”

He just snorts.

“See? Can’t be any worse than that.”

You sigh.

“I have some burn scars,” you say, your voice flat. “They still hurt sometimes.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

You mind, but you don’t say so. You figure he’s probably going to end up seeing you naked, anyway.

His fingers are delicate, and he’s oddly gentle with you when he slips the hospital gown off your torso. He adjusts his glasses again, loosing a low whistle.

“You don’t have _some_ burn scars, man. You have a _lot_ of burn scars.”

“Could have been worse,” you say, because that’s what you always say, because it’s true. He leans in, very lightly prodding at a cluster of scar tissue over your ribs. He mutters something about “neuropathic pain” and “hypertrophic scars” and a whole bunch of other shit that you don’t understand until he gets to the part where he says, “I can treat these.”

You stare. You can’t help it. You just stare and stare and stare with your eyes huge in your face.

“You don’t gotta live with ‘em hurtin’ you,” he says, soft enough to sound kind.

“Oh,” you manage.

He gives you a funny look, like he wants to hug you but knows it would be inappropriate.

“I’ll, uh. I’ll just put that down on your treatment list,” he says, turning his attention back to his clipboard. After a moment, he says, “I’m Eridan. In case. In case you wanted to know, or somethin’.”

“Karkat,” you say, your voice scratchy.

He nods.

“Yeah, I know.” He gives the clipboard a little wave. “Ain’t a soul who don’t know who you are, now.”

Your face burns. Eridan gives you another complicated look.

“You’re Sol’s friend.”

You sit up straight.

“What?”

“Sol? Sollux Captor? Ain’t you his friend?”

“You know him?”

You swear he goes a little purple across the cheeks.

“Yeah.”

“Is he okay?”

“Well…”

“Wait, no, let me guess: about half the time, right?”

“Heh. Yeah, sounds about right. He talks about you, y’know. All the time.”

You don’t trust your voice, so you just nod in response. There’s a lull.

Finally, Eridan says, “Well. Guess we should move on, huh?”

You shiver all down your spine and squeeze your eyes shut.

“Yeah, okay, let’s just get this awfulness over with?”

“Huh?”

“Just…tell me what I have to do.”

“Uh…alright. Well, just sit real still—”

“Oh my god.”

“Are you needle-shy, or somethin’?”

Your eyes pop open.

“What?! Why the fuck are needles involved? No. Hell no and triple fuck no, you are not putting a needle anywhere near my bulge—”

“Whoa, whoa, Kar, chill, take it easy!”

“How the ever-loving fuck am I supposed to ‘take it easy’ when you are threatening my genitalia with a sharp medical instrument?!”

Eridan bursts out laughing. You try to channel murder through your glare. Sadly, he fails to fall over dead.

“Oh—oh god, Sol was right, you’re a riot—aw, c’mon, don’t look at me like that, I ain’t laughin’ at you—okay, no, I’m kinda laughin’ at you. Kar, use your head: I’m not takin’ genetic material from you. Just a blood sample so we can study your mutation. I mean, we got your ancestor’s blood on file, but we wanna see if your form of the mutation is any different.”

You are doing all the staring today.

“A blood sample,” you repeat.

“Yeah. That’s it. Her Condescension don’t want any more mutie genetics in the slurry, is all. Your ancestor was a total slip-up. Nobody knows how he pulled that stunt off without gettin’ culled on the spot, an’ then the Games happened an’ he was way too famous to cull, so Her Condescension just sorta had to let it slide, and well, here you are.”

“Blood sample,” you say a second time, shaking with relief. Eridan snickers.

“Shit. You’re a mess, you know that?”

You let yourself breathe while he takes two vials of your blood. Looking at the color makes you feel like smashing the nearest breakable object, but Eridan seems fascinated by the unnatural hue.

“Unreal,” he breathes. “I can’t wait to get this under the microscope.”

“Are all seadwellers this pan-damaged, or is it just you?”

“I’m my own special brand of pan-damaged. It’s what makes me irresistible.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

He chatters at you through the process of taking X-rays and treating your scars. He makes angry hissing noises at the images he tacks up on the light board, and it’s surreal for someone to be angry at your pain just as much as it’s surreal to see the images of your pale bones shot through with fracture lines. He says the only bright side is that somehow they’ve all healed right. You take that as a badge of pride for your bone-setting skills. And Gamzee’s too, you guess.

None of it takes as long as you thought it would, and pretty soon Eridan’s thanking you for your cooperation and telling you to have a nice evening. He stops at the door, then turns around and comes back to you, gnawing his bottom lip.

“Listen,” he says. He takes your hand in both of his and looks at you about as earnestly as anyone’s ever looked at you. “You gotta try real hard out there, ‘kay? ‘Cause I don’t think Sol can take losin’ you.”

Your everything hurts all at once. You barely know this boy, but you cling onto his hand and let him put an arm around you while you wait for your eyes to stop burning.

 

*

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\--cognizanceGazer [CG] has opened chatroom  _ Well That Was Mortifying (By Which I Mean the Genetic Collection) _ \--

 

CG:  I would hate to repeat the title of this chatroom

CG:  But.

CG:  That was mortifying.

 

\--tempestAgent [TA] has logged into chatroom _Well That Was Mortifying (By Which I Mean the Genetic Collection)_ \--

 

TA:  I

TA:  think I can second that.

CG:  Ugh.

CG:  That’s just.

CG:  All I can say.

TA:  Um. Yes.

TA:  And honestly, I wanted to

TA:  Never mind.

CG:  ?

TA:  No. It’s stupid.

 

\-- empathicExile [EE] [moderator] has logged into chatroom _Well That Was Mortifying (By Which I Mean the Genetic Collection)_ \--

 

EE:  TA, please feel free to share.

EE:  As we’ve discussed before, nothing you say here will be judged. Please don’t belittle yourself.

CG:  Oh, hi, moderator.

EE:  Hello, CG. Welcome to GamesAnon. I can log out if you’d be more comfortable conversing without my presence.

CG:  No, it’s okay. The more the merrier and probably more mortified, I guess. Anyway, TA, what were you going to say?

TA:  I just

TA:  Um. I can’t believe, I’m about to admit

TA:  Well it’s not like I’ve never

TA:  Uh

TA:  Flown solo before

TA:  But, I’ve never, uh

TA:  Done that

TA:  with someone else in the room.

TA:  And it sort of, felt like

TA:  like that was something private, and not something I, wanted to share

TA:  with someone who isn’t

TA:  special to me.

CG:  :[

CG:  That’s not stupid.

CG:  It’s really nice.

TA:  Um. Thank you.

CG:  Do you have someone special? Not that you have to tell me, or anything.

TA:  Well

TA:  no

TA:  Not really.

TA:  There is someone who I think likes me, in a maybe flushed way, but, I’m not sure how I feel about him

TA:  other than that he is just my really good friend

CG:  Aw. Friends are still great, though. :]

TA:  Yes, but, I feel really guilty for not liking him in the same way he maybe likes me, and also because, I don’t know how to tell him that, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings

EE:  You don’t have to feel guilty for not reciprocating someone else’s feelings, TA. You can’t force yourself to feel a certain way, nor should you be expected to.

TA:  I guess. He’s never made me feel bad about it, or anything

TA:  He’s just a really easygoing guy

TA:  But, I’ve gotten us really off topic, sorry.

EE:  These things tend to wander, as does any conversation. It’s alright.

CG:  Bluh, it was a nice distraction.

EE:  Is there anything you would like to share about your experience today, CG?

CG:  …

CG:  It just felt icky and weird. And kind of violating.

CG:  I mean it’s not like anyone tried to touch me or anything.

CG:  But just having someone standing there watching was really unnerving.

TA:  Did your guard-lab-tech person say anything creepy to you?

CG:  What? Uh, no, I guess not. She was pretty professional, I guess.

TA:  Oh.

TA:  Mine, uh

TA:  I think was maybe trying to compliment me, but, it just seemed kind of creepy

TA:  Considering

CG:  Ugh, gross. What’d they say?

TA:  Um

TA:  I’m quoting here:

TA:  “Nice rack.”

TA:  By which, I guess, he meant my horns

TA:  Because I don’t have anything on my chest, so

TA:  Yeah.

EE:  Well, that was highly unprofessional, not to mention objectifying, demeaning, and uncalled-for.

CG:  Agreed. Ew. What a perv.

CG:  I guess I should probably feel better about my experience by comparison, but I still feel pretty icky.

EE:  There’s no need to compare. TA’s unfortunate experience does not make your own feelings about your experience any less valid.

TA:  It pretty much, just, um, objectively sucks, for everyone.

CG:  Yeah, no kidding. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that this shit is legal, but I am not pleased.

TA:  Ha. Yeah.

TA:  Oh shoot

TA:  My district partner is, being

TA:  Very loud, so I should probably, see what she wants

TA:  Thanks, EE. And, CG, I hope you feel, better.

CG:  Yeah, you too, TA.

 

\--tempestAgent [TA] has logged out of chatroom _Well That Was Mortifying (By Which I Mean the Genetic Collection)_ \--

CG:  …

EE:  Are you alright?

CG:  Yeah. Just sort of upset.

EE:  If you’d be more comfortable talking in private, you can PM me, now or at any time. I may not always be available, but I do try to respond as soon as possible. And maybe not always in extremely long blocks of text.

 

\--cognizanceGazer [CG] is idle--

 

EE:  CG? Are you okay?

 

\--cognizanceGazer [CG] has opened a private chat with empathicExile [EE] [moderator] \--

 

CG:  I’m worried about my district partner.

EE:  That’s a somewhat unusual (but very refreshing) sentiment in these circumstances. What seems to be the trouble?

CG:  Clearly I wasn’t there, but

CG:  collecting his genetic material could be a little upsetting to him for reasons other than the obvious skeez factor.

CG:  And he doesn’t answer when I knock on his door.

CG:  He’s just

CG:  being really quiet.

CG:  Which is kind of not normal for him.

EE:  I’d suggest knocking again in a little while. He might simply be processing right now.

CG:  Bluh. Yeah, you’re right. He’s such a disaster.

EE:  You sound as if you care for him.

CG:  I do. We’re friends. Have been for a long time.

EE:  I’m sorry for your predicament, CG.

CG:  We used to do so much fun stuff together.

CG:  And those were some of my favorite parts of my childhood.

CG:  And I feel like now all of that is just getting ruined.

EE:  It sounds trite,     but no one can take those memories from you.

EE:  No matter what you face in the Games, no matter who emerges as victor, as long as you are alive, you will still know that once, you had a wonderful friend.

EE:  And he will know the same.

*

**Terezi: Try Knocking Again**

You knock on Karkat’s door again, and this time it opens, and you stare at each other, both of you bleary-eyed.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah. They didn’t even take my genetic material. Don’t ask me what I’m so worked up about.”

“Hug it out?”

“Yeah.”

Your arms form chain links around each other, and you stay that way until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shamelessly stole Gamzee calling Terezi "Terecita" from The Serendipity Gospels, which is a wonderful, wonderful fic, if you haven't read it.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the update. For those of you who celebrate Halloween, have a fun, safe evening!


	7. Tributes: Ask All The Wrong Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're starting to close in on a) the end of my backlog, and b) part one! There will still be a few updates for this part (two after this one, if I'm doing my math right, which I was always...questionable at), but once we get a chapter or so into part two, updates will slow down considerably. Fair warning! Writer will now shut up.

**Past Porrim: Develop Your Jadeblood Instincts**

Your male tribute this time around is barely six sweeps. It always upsets you when the youngest of the possible age groups is chosen. It seems to you an unfair fluke of statistics.

He’s a tiny, fussy thing who knows words bigger than he is and isn’t afraid to use them in liberal amounts. He’s easily flustered, and grows increasingly agitated when your supervisor tries to touch him, so much so that she finally throws up her hands and tells you, “I’m going to check on the girl. You deal with him.”

She storms out, leaving you alone with a prissy, frightened six-sweep-old. He’s drawn himself up as tall as he can (which is not very tall), clutching his towel around himself with his chin lifted. He looks self-righteous and like he’s trying very hard to hold onto the crumbling scraps of his dignity. You’re overwhelmed with a stab of indescribable fondness. He’s… _cute_.

“Well. You’ve certainly made an impression,” you say.

“That was hardly my intention,” he bites out. For a boy so young, he can sound awfully chilly. “I only wish for some basic respect of my personal space.”

You smile.

“You don’t like to be touched.”

“I most certainly don’t.”

You can’t help but chuckle.

“Prickly little thing, aren’t you?”

He folds his arms and huffs, turning his nose up. You think the words _swot_ and _adorable_ in the same sentence. Oh, bother. Your goddamn jade instincts are kicking in.

“I don’t appreciate the condescending terminology. By referring to me as a ‘little thing,’ you are both diminishing me and depersonalizing me, both of which are extremely—”

You snort. He glares at you, indignant, but you speak before he has a chance to go on.

“I’m sorry,” you say, giggling. Then, more seriously, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to diminish or depersonalize you. It’s just a turn of phrase.”

“Well…well kindly refrain from using it.”

You take a measured step toward him. He looks like he wants to back up, but holds his ground.

“I’m not sure we’ve been properly introduced,” you say. “I’m Porrim.”

There’s a long silence while he stares at you, thrown off guard by your friendliness.

“Kankri,” he says at last.

You take another small step toward him.

“Kankri,” you repeat. “It’s my job to dress you. I’ve done this dozens of times before. There’s no need to be bashful.”

“I’m not being bashful,” he says through his (blunt, harmless, oh poor dear) teeth. “I just don’t care to be touched. I find it deeply triggering.”

“I’ll try to avoid touching you as much as I can so as to avoid...uh… _triggering_ you. But you have to let me do my job.”

He gives you a mistrustful look, but finally nods and allows you to start fashioning an outfit for him. He shivers the whole time. You resolve to make him a sweater for his _Goodnight, Alterniearth_ interview.

While you pin where you’ll want take in the seam of his shirtsleeve, you accidentally prick his arm. He sucks in a sharp breath. You remove the half-assembled garment, not wanting to get blood on it.

“Sorry, dear, sorry, here, let’s see…”

He slaps a hand over the tiny puncture. When you go to pry his fingers away, his eyes turn absolutely huge in his face.

“No, _don’t_!”

You stop, startled, and look at his terrified face. You’ve never seen anyone so worked up over a pinprick before.

Slowly, watching him the whole time, you pull his hand away. His breath is coming in short, shallow gasps, and you wonder what in the world is wrong until you see _exactly_ what’s wrong.

The small bead of blood on his arm is red.

Not rust.

_Red_.

“Oh my,” you breathe.

He bursts into tears.

You pull him into your arms before you can register what you’re doing. He fights you for just a second before giving up and falling against you, shaking.

“Shh, shhh, it’s alright, hush, you’re fine…”

“They’ll kill me—I won’t even make it to the Games—I—I’m sorry I lied, I had to, there was nothing else I could—please just make it quick, please—”

“No one’s killing you,” you murmur, and you had no idea you could be so soothing. You stroke the curl of hair looped around one nubby horn. “I’m not going to tell a soul. It’ll be our little secret.”

“I’ll never make it past the genetic material collection,” he whimpers. “Never mind the fact that I took a—a vow, even if I do manage to—it’ll be—they’ll _see_ —”

You pat his back, swaying from side to side, and by god, you really are turning into a proper jadeblood.

Or, you think with dawning horror, you’re falling pale for him.

“We’ll come up with something,” you hear yourself say. You shouldn’t promise him that. You really shouldn’t. But he’s just so frightened. “I’ll see to it you make it through the collection. So shh, calm down. Does your handler know about this?”

He shakes his head, pulling out of your arms and hunching into himself.

“I—and please note that I in no way mean this as a speciesist remark, but—I find it difficult to trust him.”

“Mmm. Dirk’s a little strange, I’ll grant you that, but he’s a good man.”

“I’d hardly call him a man,” Kankri says. “I doubt he’s all that much older than me. Besides,” he lowers his voice and his gaze, looking uneasy, “I’ve seen the footage from his Games. Clearly he possesses the capacity to be extremely violent.”

You press a bandage over the small pinprick and resume pinning.

“I don’t think you’d be in any danger of an attack,” you reassure him. “Humans don’t really seem to care much about the caste system.”

“Still. I’d…appreciate it if you would be so kind as to just keep this between us.”

You cover the bandage with your hand, briefly, then draw the touch away.

“Of course,” you promise.

 

**Present Porrim: Be the Best Not-Moirail**

You never did tell anyone.

But the Games are not kind to people with secrets.

Even at twelve sweeps, Kankri is still small and fussy. He still hates to be touched. He still grows irritated and flustered over what he calls your “pale advances.”

But sometimes, in his most desperate moments, he tells you he values your friendship, and you know it’s as close to love as he’ll allow himself to come.

You smooth out the nonexistent wrinkles in his cardigan and smile down at him.

“You’ll do fine. Just relax.”

“I _am_ relaxed.”

“Your shoulders are practically up to your ears, Kanny.”

“Why am I so nervous about meeting them? They’re only children.”

“Personally significant children.”

“Hush.”

“Are you censoring me?”

“Oh, that’s not fair.”

“Got you to think about something else for a second, though, didn’t it?”

He huffs. No one can huff like Kankri.

“You are incorrigible. I do hope you know that.”

Your smile turns smug.

“No, darling, what I did with last week’s fling-du-jour was incorrigible.”

He puts his hands over his ears and talks as loud as he can to drown out the details.

 

**Karkat: Have a Staring Contest with the Wall**

From the window of the corporate high-rise they’ve taken you to for your Q&A session with Kankri, you can see the trains pulling into the station, no doubt bringing back past victors who have already been shuffled out of the Imperial City. You’d give anything for one of those victors to be from your district, for anyone else to be able to give you advice. But Kankri is the only survivor from District Four who’s still young and sane enough to speak to you.

Goody.

You’ve worn your workout gear, still sweaty from training earlier that morning, in protest.

Terezi, meanwhile, actually made an effort to clean up, though it’s strange to see her in jeans again after the barrage of fancy dresses and skirts as of late. But there will be no cameras in the room for this event, so there’s little point in wearing the Capitol’s finest drapery.

You sit on a leather bench in the hall while Mr. Strider has a private word with Kankri inside the conference room. Terezi jiggles her leg fast enough to rock the bench.

You give her a sideways look.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Then what’s with the bucking hoofbeast leg? Did you O.D. on caffeine while I wasn’t looking?”

Terezi sighs.

“No. I guess I’m kind of nervous about meeting him.”

You tilt your head to one side.

“Why? It’s not like he’s _your_ douchebag ancestor.”

Terezi gives you a look that’s difficult to interpret.

“Have you ever watched his Games footage?”

“Nope,” you say, resettling to fold your legs up under you. “Turned the T.V. off any time I heard his name mentioned.”

“Ah.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Terezi shrugs, hunching over to rest her elbows on her knees. At least she stops bouncing her leg.

You turn your attention back to the wall opposite you and stare at it for just long enough to get tired of looking at gray concrete before turning back to her.

“It’s Gamzee, isn’t it?” you ask. You realize half a second too late that that was far from your best transition and add, “The kismesis you implied having.”

She boggles at you.

“How—”

“I am not actually dumb, that’s how.”

Her face colors pale teal as she looks away from you.

“Uh. Yeah. This wasn’t…exactly how I—how _we_ wanted you to find out.”

She turns her eyes back to you, scanning for your reaction. You don’t really have one to give her.

“Okay. And how were you planning to break that delicate piece of news to me, exactly?”

“We. Uh. We weren’t.”

You go silent for a long time. You could say a lot of things to that, most of them along the lines of, _‘You sneaky fucking assholes.’_

Instead, you settle on, “How many times did you just say ‘uh?’ You sound like Tavros.”

After a minute, she snorts into her fist.

“Oh fuck. I do.”

Her giggle fit is cut short by the door opening and Mr. Strider leaning his head out.

“Alright, Terezi. You’re up. Karkat, you sit tight out here.”

“I am greatly looking forward to the staring contest I’ll be having with this wall, let me just tell you.”

Terezi stands up and brushes imaginary dust off her jeans. You catch a glimpse of a piece of red chalk poking out of her pocket and feel all soft inside.

The door barely makes any sound as it closes behind her.

 

**Sollux: Tell Her How You Really Feel**

You had forgotten how much you platonically despise Vriska Serket.

But lucky for you, she is sitting right here, intent on reminding you.

“Heeeeeeeey, Thollux,” she says, resting her elbows on the table. “How’s tricks?”

“Fine, Vriska.”

“I asked about you, so aren’t you going to ask how I’m doing? It’s only polite.”

“I don’t have to be polite to you.”

Vriska makes an irritated _tch_ sound, rolling her eyes.

“Jeez, I come in here all friendly just trying to have a nice conversation and you flip into full lisp-king bitch-mode on me. What’s a girl have to do to get a break?”

“Just ask any shit you want to ask about the Games and go away.”

Vriska puts on the fakest pout you’ve ever seen.

“Why don’t you like me, Thollux?”

“You know why I don’t like you, Vriska.”

She gives you her best shocked-and-hurt face, batting her eyelashes.

“What? Why ever not?”

You grip the edges of the table.

“Half a sweep ago,” you hiss. “At the lottery. I was close enough to see the names on the cards when the Capitol rep drew them. And I was close enough to see you use your powers when he called the female tribute.” You swallow, though it does nothing to smooth over the roughness of your voice. “Aradia Megido wasn’t the name on the card, but it sure was what he said out loud.”

All of Vriska’s feigned innocence melts away, a grin spreading across her face like oil through water.

“You can’t prove anything.”

You can feel your brain scrabbling for your psionics, wanting to spark, to electrocute the smug smile right off her face, but they’re not there, access denied, the single code you can’t hack. You force yourself to remain calm.

“No,” you say. “But I can sure as hell enjoy watching you die. Karma’s a real bitch, huh?”

And _boom_ , hit the feral switch. Vriska’s eyes narrow, her mouth pulling back in a snarl. She stands up and slams her hands down on the table, leaning right into your personal space.

“Fuck you, Captor. I’m not going to die. I’m going to win just to spite you, you fucking pathetic waste of space, and then I’m going to stick around and make your life a living _hell_ just because I can!”

Roxy throws an arm between you.

“Okay, guys, I think that’s enough of that!” she says. “Vriska, do you have anything _actually related to the Games_ to ask Sollux?”

Vriska snarls and shoves back from the table.

“I don’t need advice from this loser,” she spits. “I’m out of here.”

She storms out of the room and into the hallway. Roxy makes an exasperated sound and follows her. You wouldn’t have Roxy’s job for anything.

You put your head down on the table. Fuck this shit. You need a cigarette break.

                               

**Kankri: Contemplate Jumping Out the Window**

You don’t feel prepared for this. Then again, you don’t think anything in the world could have prepared you for sitting across the table from Latula’s descendent. You thank private gods that Mr. Strider will be in the room for the duration of the Q&A. You’re afraid that without his presence, you might be tempted to jump out the enormous window overlooking the city.

In true Capitol form, the long board room table is lined with a full high-tea spread, polished silver trays stacked with finger sandwiches, scones, clotted cream, and pastries, as well as pots of tea and coffee. Terezi has opted for a cup of black coffee and a cherry danish. You note with some amusement that she’s kicked off her sneakers under the table.

You clear your throat.

“Well. Um. Would you…like anything else to eat? That’s not much of a breakfast. Or…brunch, I guess.”

Terezi takes an enormous bite out of the danish.

“Are you kidding?” she asks with her mouth full. “This thing is the size of my face. Besides, you’re not eating.”

You glance down at your own breakfast, which happens to be a glass of ice water and nothing else.

“Ah. Fair enough, I suppose.”

Terezi holds her danish out to you.

“Want a bite?”

You come very close to smiling.

“No, thank you.”

Terezi shrugs and goes back to devouring the pastry.

“Suit yourself.”

You draw squiggles in the condensation beading the outside of your glass.

“So, Terezi,” you say at last. “Is there anything you’d like to ask me?”

Terezi quirks her mouth to one side as she thinks, an expression so like Latula you forget where you are for a moment.

“Yes,” she says at last, and folds her arms on the table in front of her, giving you a very serious look. “Would you pass me another cherry danish?”

This time, you do smile. You hand the pastry over, shaking your head as she dips a finger into the fruit filling and sticks it in her mouth.

“I gather you’re fond of the color red.”

“Red is the best color,” Terezi says. “I think I liked it even better when I was blind, though.”

“And you could…what was it you said during your interview? Smell colors?”

“And taste them.”

“Interesting. And you…preferred life with your disability?”

Terezi picks a piece off her danish and spears it with a claw.

“I guess I never really thought of it as a disability,” she says. “I didn’t feel like I was lacking anything. Actually, I felt the opposite; I think I felt more complete when I was blind than I do now.”

That fills you with a nebulous sort of sadness you can’t fit a name to, so you don’t try.

“I see. I suppose my question contained rather ableist undertones. My apologies if I triggered you.”

Terezi raises an eyebrow.

“Uh…no problem. You didn’t, though. I mean…wow, you’re worried about triggering me. Just. You are so not…um…”

You dig your blunted claws into your palms.

“Normal?”

Terezi blinks at you.

“Well…yeah. I guess. You’re just not like most of the adults I’ve met. It’s not a bad thing.”

“Ah.”

Both of you fall silent for a time.

Finally, abruptly, Terezi says, “I’ve watched your Games footage.”

All the blood drains out of your face and you feign interest in refilling your barely-sipped-from water glass to avoid looking at her.

“Who hasn’t?” you say, perhaps more waspishly than you’d intended. If Terezi is bothered by your tone, she doesn’t let on. Instead, she asks the question you’ve been dreading from the moment she walked into the room:

“So…you knew my ancestor?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Mr. Strider shift in his chair, a subtle clue that he’s paying close attention, monitoring your reaction. You sit perfectly still.

“Yes.”

“She was your friend.”

“Yes.”

Hesitation, and then, “Can you tell me about her? All I know is stuff from the Games.”

You take your hands off the table and fold them in your lap. It would not do for her to see you shaking.

“Before we were taken to the Capitol, she had no sense of smell,” you blurt out. It was not the piece of information you expected to share. To your surprise, Terezi looks delighted.

“Really?” She leans forward, grinning. “Weeeeird.”

You chuckle in spite of yourself.

“I suppose maybe I took it a little too seriously for her tastes,” you admit. “Any time I expressed concern over her infirmity, she’d just tell me, and I quote, to ‘get my chill on, ‘cause it’s all cool’.”

Terezi snorts.

“Wow. So, uh…what was she like?”

You think. It’s not as difficult to speak as you think it will be.

“She always knew how to have fun. Even in the Games. I’m not sure it made it into the final aired footage, but she organized a dance party in the middle of our session.”

“You’re kidding.”

“As anyone will tell you, Terezi, I have practically no sense of humor.”

“Oh my god. That’s kind of amazing. Did you go to this in-session Rainbow Rumpus Dance-Time Party?”

“Oh yes. I couldn’t form a good excuse to escape it. Your ancestor also insisted that I take full part in the festivities. I do not dance. Or do handstands. Both of which Latula excelled at.”

“She sounds cool.”

You smile, just a tiny little bit.

“I believe ‘rad’ would have been her word of choice.”

“Hehe. Awesome.”

“One of the few times I visited her district, she and her matesprit attempted to teach me how to rocketboard. The results were…unfortunate.”

“She could rocketboard?!”

“Very well.”

“That’s so cool!”

“She could also best practically anyone at video games.”

Terezi props her hand in her chin.

“Wish I could have met her.”

The words slip out before you have a chance to censor them:

“I wish that, too.”

Terezi’s smile falters, then fades altogether.

“Sorry,” she says. “You probably miss her, so…sorry.” She fidgets, clearly uncomfortable, then asks, “Is it weird seeing the descendants of people you used to be friends with? I mean, I know it’s not just me. You were friends with Mituna Captor, too, right? So…y’know…Sollux…”

You can’t answer for a moment.

“I was—not as good a friend to Mituna as I probably should have been, for entirely selfish reasons.”

Terezi turns her head on one side.

“Huh?”

You shake your head.

“Old history. Nothing to concern yourself with.”

Terezi gives you a startlingly shrewd look.

“Mituna and my ancestor were a flushed item, right?”

You bite down on the inside of your cheek in an attempt to kill off the irrational anger that floods through you. You’d thought you were done with those feelings after all these sweeps.

“Yes.”

Terezi’s eyes are still fixed on you, and you can see the intelligence in them.

“You loved her.”

It hurts just as much as you think it will. In the corner, Mr. Strider tenses, his hand hovering over the blade of his sword, like he thinks you’ll go feral and lunge at her. You feel vaguely offended that after all these sweeps he doesn’t know you better than that.

You look down at the table, swallowing again and again to try to dislodge the lump in your throat.

“What gave me away?”

“Pretty much everything,” Terezi says. “You talk about her like she’s sacred.”

You stare out the window again. Such a long way down. You’d probably barely feel it when you hit the ground, it would be over so quickly.

“I suppose, to me, she is.”

Terezi runs her fingers through her hair, frowning.

“I’m asking all the wrong questions, aren’t I?”

You shake your head.

“I don’t think there’s really such a thing as a wrong question.”

Terezi laughs.

“Jesus, I wonder if you’re what Karkat would be like on chill-pills.”

You try and fail to smile. Of course Terezi has no way of knowing that you are heavily medicated for this particular experience. You’re just grateful to have moved away from the subject of Latula.

“I don’t know about that. I probably talk more.”

“Have you ever heard Karkat rant about something?”

“Have you ever heard me lecture?”

“Touché. Ooh, can we have a talk-a-thon between you two? That would be the best. Winner is whoever can monologue for the longest without taking a breath.”

You had forgotten how often most people smile during any given conversation.

You find Terezi clever and engaging. You think, rather wistfully, that Latula might have even described her as “rad.”

She doesn’t ask you about the Games. You’re the one who has to broach the subject.

“Is there…do you have any questions? In regards to the Culling Games, I mean.”

She lowers her head and stares at her empty plate for a long time.

“What was it like knowing you had friends at stake?”

Your throat closes too tight to allow you to breathe, much less speak.

Finally, you manage, “Vastly more difficult, I think.”

She nods.

“Yeah. Thought so.”

“I know it’s not precisely a comfort.”

“I’d rather have honesty than comfort.”

She pushes her plate in idle circles.

“You didn’t kill anyone for almost the entirety of your session,” she says suddenly. You draw away from the table a bit, surprised by the change in topic.

“I had a vow of nonviolence before I entered the Games,” you say. “I suppose I still do.”

Terezi looks back up at you, and you entertain the thought of re-breaking your vow for having to see the gray of her irises, the blatant reminder that these are children sent to die for no crime other than existing.

“Was it hard?” she asks. “When you actually had to…um…kill someone?”

You let the sentence hang for a moment. You feel a distressing amount of nothing.

“No,” you say at last.

Terezi looks surprised.

“The act itself wasn’t difficult,” you go on, your tone clinical, detached. “Trolls are, as our Empress has proven again and again, very effective killers. It was the aftermath that was the difficult part.”

Terezi frowns, quiet for a long time. She doesn’t take her eyes off you.

“Can I hug you?” she asks at last.

Your jaw goes slack.

“Uh…”

Mr. Strider shifts closer.

“He doesn’t really like—”

“It’s alright,” you say, surprising yourself. “I mean. Yes. That would be okay.”

Terezi nods, a decisive sort of motion, and stands up to cross to your side of the table. She leans down and puts her skinny arms around your neck, and you expect to flinch but don’t. After a moment, you allow yourself to put one hand on her back.

She feels so small.

Only a few seconds later, she draws back and gives you the same funny smile Latula used to use when she didn’t know what to say.

“Thanks.”

You are struck speechless by a six-sweep-old girl. She is not Latula. And you are okay with that.

“You’re welcome. I think,” you say when you find your voice again.

Terezi puts her hands in her pockets.

“Can I ask you one more thing?”

“Of course. There’s not a time limit.”

She straightens her posture slightly, lifting her chin.

“Do you think she’d have liked me?”

You come very close to smiling again.

“I don’t see how she couldn’t have.”

Terezi grins, still all sharp teeth, but it’s softened somehow. She aims a light punch at your shoulder before heading to the door.

“Hope we get to hang out again sometime,” she says, and you’re astonished that she sounds like she actually means it. You give a baffled wave as she disappears from the room.

Mr. Strider raises his eyebrows at you. Your expression sours.

“Oh, don’t.”

“What? I didn’t say anything.”

“Just don’t.”

He chuckles, but says nothing on his way to the hall to retrieve Karkat.

Karkat, who you can tell is far less happy to meet you than Terezi was.

Off camera, the boy seems to be in a constant state of scowling disarray, as if he’s too grumpy to be bothered with pedestrian things like combing his hair or putting on clean clothes. You really have no idea how Porrim’s been managing him.

“Hello, Karkat,” you say, and your voice does not waver and your hands do not shake.

He glares at Mr. Strider and throws himself into the chair across from you.

“Hello yourself,” he snaps.

Oh dear.

“Please help yourself to some brunch.”

Karkat eyes the food, and you can see him struggling with himself. Finally, he snatches a plate and loads it with one or two of absolutely everything from the spread. He sits back down and proceeds to eat with the sort of speed that only someone unaccustomed to having food in front of them can manage. Like you’ll take it away from him if he dawdles too long.

You clear your throat.

“So,” you say. “Is there…anything you’d like to ask me?”

He licks strawberry jam off a claw.

“Do you get to eat like this all the time?”

Not…exactly the line of questioning you were expecting.

“I suppose if I wanted to I could.”

“What’s your place like?”

You blink.

“I’m sorry?”

“Your hive. Or apartment. Or whatever place they set you up in. Is it nice?”

“I…guess so. Why do you—”

“None of your business, that’s why.”

You shoot a bewildered glance at Mr. Strider, who’s wearing a thin smile that seems to say, _‘Why yes, he is this hostile all the time.’_

You try to change tact.

“Is there anything about the Games you’d like to ask me?”

Karkat glowers at you over a biscuit. The effect isn’t nearly as frightening as you think he’d like.

“Oh, so it’s all business now? Not going to address the trunk-beast in the room if I don’t do it first?”

The room feels too small and your clothes feel too tight and your throat feels even tighter.

“You’re my descendent,” you manage at last, your voice coming out a little icy. “Is that what you were looking for?”

Karkat turns to sit sideways in his chair, facing away from you.

“Yeah. Anything to say about that disaster?”

Your voice seems to have abandoned you.

“No? Great, fucking fine, I don’t want to have a fucking heart-to-heart either.”

You don’t know what to say.

“If you—um…if you would like to…talk about your feelings on the subject, I would be happy to listen.”

Apparently, that was quite the wrong thing to say. Karkat shoves his plate aside and bares his teeth at you.

“Don’t fucking talk down to me. There’s only room for one Condescension on this planet.”

You weren’t expecting him to be friendly. That’s not the image he’s presented to the public, and you hadn’t pegged him for an actor. Still, you didn’t expect so much anger aimed directly at you.

“I wasn’t trying to talk down to you,” you insist. “It was a sincere offer.”

It seems there isn’t a right thing to say to this boy, because at that, he growls low in his throat.

“You’re not my moirail,” he hisses, “and you’re not my lusus.”

Lusus. There’s pain in that word. A lot of it. You remember how homesick you were when they first brought you here.

“I know that,” you say, trying to slip past his defenses by staying calm. “If I’ve done something to offend you—”

He bangs his fist down on the table hard enough to rattle the ice in your glass. Mr. Strider sits forward.

“Your _existence_ offends me,” Karkat growls. “The fact that you somehow survived the brooding caverns offends me. The fact that you pranced your way through the Games barely getting your hands dirty and then managed to fucking win anyway _offends_ me. The fact that you got our fucked-up genetics famous _motherfucking offends me_!”

You get the feeling that all this rage has been simmering for a very long time. You suppose you can’t blame him. You’d never expected your genetics to go anywhere, assuming the mutation was too rare to manifest again, especially in your lifetime. But here is the result of your deception, of your insistence on survival, staring you down across the table with so much raw loathing you fear for your life.

“I’m sorry,” you say, your voice barely a whisper.

For a moment, he seems pacified. He turns away from you again, scowling at the opposite wall.

“Please know that I never intended—”

“Shut up,” he snaps. “Just—just shut up. I don’t want to hear your excuses, you spoiled, self-centered asshole.”

You’d known this would be painful. You just hadn’t known how much.

“I imagine things were…difficult for you growing up?”

Karkat scoffs, still not looking at you.

“Difficult,” he echoes. “That’s such a polite way of putting it. So nice and vague. You know, my neighborhood pegged me as yours before I was even two.”

You look at the facial features, the blunted horns. It’s not a wonder people figured it out.

“You can imagine the sorts of fun that was, everyone around me knowing I was a freak. I had to keep paint on hand all the time to cover all the graffiti on the hive, shit, I fixed more broken windows over the course of a sweep than your average carpenter drone does in a lifetime, and that still didn’t stop people banging on my door in the middle of the night and calling me to come out and play, by which they meant _let us chase you around with rocks and nooses and actual motherfucking pitchforks, won’t that be a treat—_ ”

Your eyes widen.

“Karkat—”

He talks over you, lost in his anger.

“—skeevy-ass adults asking me if I was as much of a slut as you, or just trying to straight-up find out for themselves—I used to have a fucking collection of hands I sliced off for that—so, you wanna ask how far they got? Go on, ask! Ask me if I’ve ever been pailed, how many times I’ve been felt up in back alleys on my way to get fucking groceries, hell, ask me about the time my lusus bit a guy’s head clean off when he broke in one night, headless asshole right on fucking top of me, it’s okay, I won’t get offended. What, you don’t want to know? Too shocking for your delicate sensibilities?”

Dizzy, you shake your head, try to find your voice, but you can’t. For reasons you barely understand, you try to touch his wrist, maybe to comfort him, maybe to try to just make him stop talking. He jerks his hand away from you, holding it to his chest.

“Don’t. Fucking. Touch me.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and you are. He clutches at his hand as if you’ve injured it, fingers clenching and unclenching almost convulsively.

“Do you know,” he says in a much quieter voice, “what a Molotov cocktail is?”

The bottom drops out of your stomach.

“Yes.”

He turns his gaze back to you. There’s no red in his irises yet, and still they burn.

“I sure didn’t when somebody chucked one through my window.”

“Oh my god.”

He looks away, his fingers tightening again around the hand he holds clutched to his chest. You can see the burns on his wrist peeking out from under his sleeve, eerie twins to your own scars.

“No more hive. No more lusus.”

That hits you harder than you expect, because you have a terrible suspicion that there was only ever one lusus for your mutant genetics. Your eyes sting. You are very grateful that Karkat won’t look at you.

“This was supposed to be my way out,” he says through his teeth. “Win and get some fucking peace, or die and just have it over with once and for all.” He laughs, short and bitter. “What did I have to lose, right?”

You realize with no small amount of horror that you’re both very close to tears. Mr. Strider gets up and takes Karkat’s shoulder.

“Come on, kid. I think that’s enough. Let’s go.”

You feel a thousand things all at once and you can’t name a single one of them. Rather than try, you look at Karkat.

“I’m sorry,” you say again.

He glares at you with more personal loathing than anyone has ever directed at you.

“ _Fuck_ you.”

And then he and Mr. Strider are gone and the room is empty and you put your hands over your head and will your shaking to stop.

 

**Terezi: Reunite**

After your interview, Mr. Strider tells you that you can either hang out in the hall or go out on the balcony a little ways down if you want some fresh air. There are guards stationed all around the building, so it’s not like you’d get far if you tried to run.

You opt for fresh air. Maybe it’ll make you feel less shitty.

Fresh air is apparently not going to happen, though, because you slide open the glass doors to the balcony and choke on a wave of cigarette smoke.

“Ugh. Gross. That smells like death, and while I may be an advocate of smelling people die, I would rather not have to breathe in their cancer sticks, too. Would you mind—”

The troll with the cigarette turns around.

Double horns, red and blue glasses, shocked expression.

“TZ?!”

You’re on him before he gets the second syllable out. He’s all bones against you, pointy elbows and sticky-out ribs and knobby spine, spindly arms locked tight around your back.

“Holy shit,” he keeps saying. “Holy fucking shit. I can’t—Jesus—”

“Hush, my little lemon bar. Also, put that disgusting piece of tar-filled murder out.”

He lets go of you and drops the cigarette, stamping it out with the sole of his blue shoe. You don’t think you’ve ever known him to smile this much.

“Holy fucking shit,” he says again.

“Agreed.”

“So, you’re here for your Q&A, right?”

“Just had mine.”

Sollux’s smile turns lopsided.

“What’d you think of Kankri?”

“He’s pretty cool. Really…uh…”

“PC?”

You snort.

“Kind of.”

“And not like any other adult you’ve ever met?”

“Yeah.”

Sollux leans against the tall (too tall to climb over and jump, you note) balcony railing.

“He’s an okay guy. Probably not much help for tactical stuff, but—”

“He’s nice.”

Sollux nods at his shoes.

“Yeah.”

After a beat, he looks up at you again.

“TZ,” he says, and it’s weird how much older he sounds. “I’d do anything to get you guys out of this if I could. You know that, right?”

You reach for his matchstick fingers and squeeze them.

“Yeah, I know, dummy.”

He squeezes your hand back before letting go.

“Kanaya’s been making you guys into glam stars. Seriously, have you looked at your backer ratings? They’re insane.”

“So, paint something shiny and the Capitol falls in love with it, huh?”

“Heh. Pretty much. That, and I guess you guys are kind of charming, or something.”

“Bluh.”

Sollux throws a hand up over his forehead and pretends to swoon.

“Oh, the pangs of young redrom! The drama! The passion!”

“Shut up.”

“And now it’s like a regular soap opera love triangle thanks to GZ. EQ and NP are way up there, too. Everybody loves moirails.”

You give him a cautious look. His face has that cloudy, distant quality that usually comes right before a mood swing.

“How are you?” you ask.

He swallows, bracing his hands on the railing.

“Bloodpusher’s still beating,” he says.

You knock shoulders with him.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“TZ, don’t.”

You sigh, then loop an arm around his shoulders and drag him down for a noogie.

“Fine, oh Master of Gloom. Stay cocooned in your Cape of Darkness.”

“Look, KK the Elder is already trying to be my therapist. I can’t take it from you, too.”

“Aw. You need a therapist.”

“Do not.”

“Don’t argue with me, Mr. Appleberry Blast. You will lose.”

“Objection.”

“On what grounds?”

“Uh…hearsay?”

“Pfff. Oh, Solluxander. Are you _trying_ to make me laugh?”

“Yes. Because maybe if you’re laughing you’ll have to let me go. I’m getting a crick in my neck.”

You give his hair one more ruffle before letting him go.

The balcony doors slide open again, and a human woman with blue-and-orange-streaked hair pokes her head out.

“Hey, Sol, everything’s under control now, so you should probably—”

She cuts off when she sees you. You freeze, wondering just how much trouble you’re in.

“Roxy, this is my friend TZ,” Sollux says, all casual.

The human looks at you. Her eyes are calculating. And pink. You know that doesn’t occur naturally in their species. It’s unnerving.

But then she smiles at you, and it’s kind of like when Porrim smiles, surprisingly sweet and disarming.

“You guys technically aren’t supposed to be talking,” she says. “Information leaks, favoritism, Imperial paranoia, you get the mumbo jumbo. But I’m just going to pretend I didn’t see you here.”

You breathe. You hadn’t realized you weren’t doing that.

“Thanks, Roxy,” Sollux says.

“Better come in soon, though, pumpkin.”

“Okay.”

The glass doors slide shut again.

“Your handler?”

“Yeah. Roxy. She’s cool.”

“So…she’s my handler’s matesprit.”

“They call it a ‘spouse’ or I guess ‘wife’ if you want to get gender-specific, but yeah, sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“It’s…complicated. I don’t think they really love each other that way. They’re more like moirails, but like I said, it’s complicated. There’s backstory. I don’t know all of it. Roxy just sort of rambles when she’s drunk, which is a lot.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

You stare down at his red and blue shoes and find yourself overwhelmed by a surge of affection.

“I miss you.”

He hugs you again, resting his chin between your horns.

“Miss you, too.”

You squeeze him tight enough to elicit a small wheeze.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” you hear yourself say. “It has to be.”

He squeezes back, and his silence is enough to indicate that he doesn’t believe you.

Finally he pulls back, smiling all soft and snaggle-toothed.

“Gotta go. Say hi to KK for me, okay?”

“Sure.”

He squeezes your shoulders, then leans down and kisses your forehead. Your bloodpusher stutters. You never would have said it while Aradia was alive and you’re even less likely to voice it now, but you always were a little pale for him.

“Good luck, TZ.”

You very deliberately don’t watch him walk away.

 

**Karkat: Hug It Out**

You can’t see anything but blurry shapes as Mr. Strider takes you out of the interview room. He drags you stumbling down the hallway and into the bathroom, then grabs your shoulders.

“Stay here,” he says firmly. “Right here. You got it? Do not move.”

And then he leaves you for a time—you’re not sure how long—but when the door opens again, he has Gamzee with him, and you don’t know how he managed that nor do you care because there is your moirail and you need your moirail and he is right here exactly where you need him.

Gamzee takes one look at you and pulls you in for a hug. You press your face into his chest and scream as loud as you dare in the echoing space. Gamzee’s long fingers tangle in your hair.

“Easy, motherfucker. What’s got you so stressed out, huh?”

You babble something unintelligible except for the curse words. Gamzee just pats the back of your head.

“Hey now, can’t be all that bad, can it? Means we get these few precious motherfuckin’ minutes together, right?”

You force yourself to make sense when you talk.

“I hate him,” you grate out. “I—hate—him. Everything’s ruined because of him, my whole fucking life—”

“Shhhh. Shh, motherfucker. I know.”

You feel better just hearing his voice. He smells good, cleaner than you’re used to, but not covered in scented bullshit, either. You miss the way he smelled when you stayed at his hive with him, like over-sweet sopor and musty laundry and sea salt. If you close your eyes, you imagine you can still smell the ocean air on him, just a little.

When you’re something close to calm again, you ask, “How was your Q&A?”

“Nothin’ to write home about.”

You choke when you hear the word ‘home.’ Gamzee rubs your back.

“All okay, Karbro.”

You can’t bring yourself to tell him that it’s not okay. It’s okay as long as he keeps standing here holding you, you guess.

Too soon, Mr. Strider is putting a hand on Gamzee’s shoulder and telling him it’s time to go. You have to work so hard not to cling to Gamzee’s arms. He leans down and kisses your forehead, chin, then both cheeks, and it’s so stunningly _traditional_ that you’re left breathless with the romance of the gesture.

“Pale for you, best beloved. Always.”

He holds his thumb and index finger out to you in a sideways L-shape. You complete the diamond, feeling a little dumb but mostly just stupid in love with him.

Mr. Strider walks him out, then reappears a few moments later for you. The look he gives you is unreadable, as usual.

“Thank you,” you manage.

He nods, leaning against the wall. After a moment of silence, he slides his shades off the bridge of his nose and stares at the sinks on the opposite wall. His eyes are an alarming shade of orange. Finally, he turns them in your direction.

“I understand,” he says.

Your brows pinch together.

“What?”

Mr. Strider turns his gaze back to the sinks, frowning.

“How could I possibly expect you to choose between them?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to my lovely beta, ilex, who was kind enough to review this chapter while waiting to board a plane, and continued thanks to everyone reading! I'mma faceplant in bed now before I have a chance to do anymore damage to the English language.


	8. Games: Impend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long pause is long! Backlog is dwindling! The Games are approaching! Exclamation points are being abused!
> 
> I also just wanted to take a sec to say thank you to everyone who's commented or left kudos (or read this at all). I've been really overwhelmed by the positive feedback. :) 
> 
> To those of you celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, I hope you have a happy one!

**Past Dirk: Choose**

You made your choice.

You chose Roxy.

And you do what the public expects. You put the ring on her finger, and you kiss her at the altar and try to focus on how beautiful she is and not how very wrong things are, the same things you tell yourself in the chill of the Imperial laboratories as you hold her pressed against you, trying to ignore the cameras, the two-way mirror with the scientists standing behind it observing you as they scribble their notes about the Empress’s valiant attempts to repopulate a dwindling, inferior species.

“This was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” you whisper, unkindly, your hands shaking as you try and fail to unhook her bra.

“Not like this,” she says, her voice cracking in your ear. “I’m sorry.”

You give up on the bra and lean your head on her shoulder.

“It’s not your fault.”

And you watch over the months, mesmerized and horrified by the ever-growing swell of her stomach, and you see your fear reflected in her face.

Six months into the pregnancy, a visitor arrives in the Victors’ Village, human like the two of you. All he tells you at first is that he’s a pastry chef who recently accepted a position in the Imperial Compound.

Then he tells you he had a daughter.

Her name was Jane.

You are the first one to break down. Roxy just apologizes, over and over, voicing the words you can’t say because you’re choking on your own breath.

Your visitor puts an arm around each of you, and you cannot recall anyone ever holding you like that, like a parent, rocking both of you like you’re six rather than sixteen.

“Children. _Children_. Please. It’s alright. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

You lived and his child didn’t. You fail to see how that is not wrong.

“Jane spoke so highly of both of you. I wanted to thank you for what your friendship meant to her.”

He doesn’t let go of you until you’ve both cried yourselves out. Then he sits you down and bakes a cake from scratch and makes sure you each eat a slice. It’s the best thing you’ve ever tasted. You tell him that and he smiles at you with genuine affection.

And then he tells you he has a plan.

 

**Present Dirk: Check on Kankri**

You sit through an awkward dinner with Roxy and the kids. They all take one look at you and know not to ask how the Q&A went. Jade and John carry on the majority of the conversation with the occasional interjection from Rose and infrequent mumbling from Dave.

You don’t know how to be a family man. You never intended to have a family.

You abscond as soon as you finish your food to go check on Kankri.

He doesn’t open the door when you knock, so you let yourself in, figuring he’s either sleeping or hiding.

You’re surprised to find him awake and standing in the kitchen. He’s swaying. You wonder what that’s about.

“Kankri? You okay?”

His eyes don’t quite focus when he turns to look at you. And that’s when you notice the bottle in his hand.

“Oh, holy shit.”

Kankri takes a stumbling step in your direction. You catch his elbow before he has a chance to faceplant.

“Oh, hello, Mr. Strider,” he says, and yup, slurring his words. What the actual fuck. “You are—so very sneaky—I din’t hear you c’min.”

“I think there’s a good reason for that,” you say, slowly. “And it’s not because I’m sneaky.”

Kankri wobbles, drops the bottle. You catch it and set it aside, then readjust your hold on him. He sags against your chest, fever-warm and close, and it kills you to want him because you know he’d never do anything like this sober.

“You are correct,” he says, poking your chest with one spindly index finger. “I am—inbri—inebi--inebriated.”

“No shit, pumpkin.”

“Why—d’you call me—silly names? I’m not a vegt’ble.”

“It’s a nickname,” you say, turning him in the direction of his bedroom and shuffling him along. “I know you’re not a vegetable. You _are_ really drunk, though. What’s with that?”

“The pills wert making me feel any better. So I thought I’d try Roxy’s sloltion. Solution. Yes. That one.”

“Okay, while I approve of drinking to excess on the right occasions, here’s a note for the future: Roxy’s solution is not a good solution. By all means, please get drunk every now and then—god knows you need it—but don’t use it as a coping mechanism. Alcoholism would not sit well on you, and I’ve already got one drunk to take care of.”

You have succeeded in Operation Get-Kankri-To-Bedroom. Now you just have to enact Operation Get-Kankri-To-Sleep-And-Make-Sure-He-Doesn’t-Drown-In-Sopor.

“l’m not—copping mechanisms—”

You snort.

“Coping mechanisms,” you say, carefully enunciating each syllable.

“Thas what I said.”

“Okay, Kankri.”

You unbutton his cardigan and slip it off his shoulders. When you reach for the hem of the turtleneck underneath, though, he slaps at your hands.

“You don’t want to sleep in this,” you tell him. “I’m pretty sure it’s cashmere. Sopor would ruin it. Porrim would cry.”

He’s giving you a weird look, narrow-eyed and unseeing. You try to pull his shirt off again.

Then something unexpected happens. He grabs both of your wrists in his slim, harmless hands and snarls at you.

You’ve heard that sound from him exactly twice: once on his Games footage, and once when you tried to touch his shoulder the first week after the Games. 

“Whoa. Easy.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“ _No_.”

You let your breath out in a slow, silent sigh.

“Do we need to establish again that I’m not a shitty fucking rapist?”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Okay.”

Just as quickly as he’d grabbed onto you, he lets you go in favor of wrapping his arms around himself and shivering.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I broke my vow. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I don’t think that really counts as breaking your vow. No damage done.”

He sits down on the floor, all curled in on himself.

“But I did,” he says. “I did break it. I’m sorry. I messed everything up—sorry…”

You kneel down by him and fold your shades up, setting them to one side. Some conversations are simply handled better sans anime eyewear.

“You want to tell me what you’re actually talking about?”

Kankri puts his face in his hands.

“I killed them,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have killed them. Why—I should have—I should have found another way—”

You pry his hands away from his face.

“Look at me. Hey. Look at me.”

Finally, he does.

“If you hadn’t killed them, you would have died.”

“Then I should have died.”

“Nope. Pretty sure Sollux would have kept trying to throw himself out of windows if you hadn’t said whatever it was you said to him. And if you were dead, who would Porrim fuss over? So don’t give me that ‘I should have died’ crap.”

“That doesn’t change what I did. Doesn’t—make’t right.”

“I’m inclined to think they deserved it, considering what they did to you. I’m aware that the Games bring out the worst in people, but there’s a limit before it’s time to die.”

You are breaking a personal rule, and that rule is “Do not talk about Kankri’s Games session.” He shudders all over.

“I don’t believe anyone deserves to die like that.”

“They were monsters.”

“They were victims.”

“And sometimes those things aren’t mutually exclusive.”

His face contorts, and you wonder if maybe he’s going to cry, but then he doesn’t, because he never does. He’ll come close to a breaking point, then draw back from it, reel the emotions back into whatever trap he keeps for them.

“I’m so tired of this,” he whispers at last. He doesn’t sound nearly as drunk as he had a little while ago.

“I know.”

He lies down and pillows his cheek on one arm. He never got very big. You’re sure that’s part of the media’s obsession with him; he’s still youthful and small and adorable, the perfect plaything for entitled highbloods who want to carry him around like a teacup poodle in their purses.

“I don’t want to watch,” he murmurs.

“No one says you have to.”

“It’ll be everywhere. No getting away.”

You comb your fingers very lightly through his hair. His shoulders twitch, but then he surprises you by turning to rest his head in your hand. Holy shit.

“I have a question,” he mumbles.

“I probably have the wrong answer.”

He opens his eyes, just a sliver, looking at you through his eyelashes. You’re sure he doesn’t know what kind of effect that has on you, but it’s still not fair.

“Are you pale-flirting with me?”

You blink. That wasn’t the question you were expecting. You don’t know what question you were expecting, but not that one.

“Uh…not…exactly, no. No. I’m human, remember? We don’t really do things that way.”

“I always thought you were pale for Roxy.”

You sigh.

“I…yeah, okay. You’re right. I’m pale for Roxy.”

“Then you’re not pale-flirting with me? Because Porrim’s enough to deal with. It’s unbearable.”

You chuckle.

“Give the lady a break. Would it really be so bad for a friend to have a crush on you?”

“Yes,” Kankri says, his voice sulky. “It always ends badly and I don’t reproci— _reciprocate_. And then they just go and get their feelings hurt.”

 _‘Like you did with Latula?’_ you think but don’t say.

“It’s bad enough that I have to pretend to be in people’s quadrants all the time,” Kankri goes on. “I can’t begin to tell you how pyschicly—no— _psychologically_ damaging it is to—to fake affection or loathing where there’s not any. And then—then—you get the big messes like Cronus—”

“Don’t angst about him. He’s not worth it.”

“He’s my _friend_.”

“He paraded you around like a party favor for sweeps. Friends don’t treat friends like handbags and call them matesprits.”

“S’complicated.”

“No, it isn’t. He’s a manipulative ass. And don’t you dare tell me I don’t know him like you do, because seriously, Kankri, that is the oldest abused girlfriend line in the book and I don’t want you to be the abused girlfriend.”

To your surprise, he laughs. Then he claps a hand over his mouth, his eyes going round.

“Oh no. No, I shouldn’t be laughing, tha’s a terrible thing to laugh about. Domestic violence is—is not—we shouldn’t laugh about it. It could be triggersome. No. Triggering. Yes.”

You snort, then lever yourself up on one elbow.

“It’s cool hearing you laugh, though. Not something you do a whole lot.”

“Well…you don’t, either.”

You should really know better than to give into your impulses. But he’s smiling and you’re smiling and impulse control gets so old after a certain point, so you lean over and kiss him, cupping his face in your hand.

You pull back and feel a stab of guilt at the look of shock on his face.

“You asked me if I was pale for you,” you mutter. “You didn’t ask me about any of the other quadrants.”

His face goes an amazing shade of red and he touches a hand to his mouth.

“You can’t—you can’t expect—”

“I don’t,” you say. “That’s why I told you now. You’re drunk. You won’t remember in the morning.”

He looks so betrayed. Oh good. More reasons to hate yourself. You get up and help him to his feet.

“Nothing will change,” you promise him.

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. Nothing will change.”

He sways on his feet, staring up at you.

“Why?”

You stroke his cheek, and for just a moment, he leans into the touch.

“I have a habit of being attracted to wordy, idealistic jerks with good hearts and untapped potential,” you say. You kiss the top of his head. “Now get some sleep.”

He grabs a handful of your shirt.

“Don’t leave me alone.”

“You want me to sleep on the couch?”

He nods.

“Okay. Don’t sleep in your sweater, alright?”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight, Kankri.”

“G’night, Dirk.”

You’re halfway to the living room when you realize that he called you by your first name.            

**Terezi: Learn to Waltz**

Mr. Strider wakes you and Karkat up at the ass-crack of dawn and herds you into the now-deserted training facility. You groan.

“No more training,” you say. “I refuse. I’d like to be able to actually use my arms for the Games.”

“Your combat training is over,” Mr. Strider says. “Noir and the rest of the combat specialists are analyzing your performance data from the group sessions so they can assign you a threat level on the evening news tonight.”

This time it’s Karkat’s turn to groan.

“Fan-fucking-tastic. Threat level one, here I come.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Besides, a low ranking isn’t always a bad thing. Plenty of tributes have deliberately aimed for a low threat level and used it as a successful red herring. People don’t tend to bother the low levels because they don’t recognize them as pressing threats. It’s the kids assigned the highest ranks who have to worry.”

“Huh,” you say.

“Great,” says Karkat.

“But none of that is why you’re here.”

“Isn’t this supposed to be a free day?” you ask.

“Yes,” Mr. Strider says. The doors to the training facility open, admitting Porrim and Kanaya. “And you’re going to spend it learning something useful.”

“What fresh hell?” Karkat asks.

Porrim clasps her hands together and smiles. You think you see a gleam of evil in her green eyes.

“Tell me, children,” she says. “What do you know about dancing?”

*

It has been three hours. Your arms hurt. Your back hurts. Your legs hurt. Your feet hurt the worst.

“No, no, no, too far apart! Karkat, do you think she’s going to bite you? Move in.”

“Chin up, Terezi. Make eye contact.”

“Your timing is off. One-two-three, one-two-three…”

“Shoulders back, both of you.”

“Karkat, tuck your butt.”

“I will thank you to never comment on the status of my butt again, Kanaya.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be. It’s a good butt.”

“Terezi!”

“As a man who has much basis for comparison, I’m inclined to agree.”

“Would everyone please stop talking about my butt?!”

“Never.”

“I will step on your foot. So help me god, I will step on your foot.”

You dip him just to prove that you can. He glares up at you.

“Oh, just. Just fuck you.”

“Hmm. That’s actually rather charming,” Porrim says. “I think we should keep that.”

“They can trade the lead there,” Dirk adds. “That’s traditional in troll culture, right? Switching who leads?”

“In a flushed courtship dance, yes, that’s common,” Porrim says. “Though there are certain underlying constructs of traditional matespritship dances that subtly divert power to the male partner if the dance is performed by a male and female couple...”

“I am going to die,” Karkat complains. “I am going to expire of mortification as a direct result of making a stumbling fool of myself.”

“You make a stumbling fool of yourself every day, Karcrab,” you tell him.

“Don’t make me flip black for you.”

“Hehehe.”

“Don’t you ‘hehehe’ at me. This whole dancing-in-front-of-millions-of-people thing may not weird you out, but I’m not built for it. It’s stupid. It’s frilly, elitist bullshit, and I don’t like it one bit.”

“Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much,” you say. “Don’t think I don’t remember your romcom collection, my little cherry tart. You love this shit. Admit it.”

He goes the most delectable shade of red.

“No.”

“You already know the steps. You’re totally just pretending you don’t.”

“In this moment, Terezi, I hate you so platonically, you don’t even know.”

You kiss his nose to shut him up. It works.

Another three hours pass before Mr. Strider allows you to take a break. You both immediately flop down on the floor and groan while Porrim and Kanaya whisper their notes on what styles and cuts they’ll need to incorporate into your outfits for better range of motion. You sincerely hope there will not be high heels. Mr. Strider comes over and sits cross-legged between the two of you.

“I get that you probably want to kill me right about now,” he says. “But you have to understand: from a tactical standpoint, tomorrow night is your last opportunity outside the Games to impress the viewers. You’ll want to give them a memorable performance.”

Karkat just grunts and rolls over on his stomach. You look at Mr. Strider.

“I get it,” you say.

He nods.

“Good.”

He puts a hand out in either direction to tousle Karkat’s hair and yours.

“Now up and at ‘em, kiddos. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

 

**Eridan: Quadrant Flip All Over the Place**

You sleep in Feferi’s apartment most of the time these days because you feel safer there, and sometimes she’ll come get you off the couch in the very late hours of the night and let you curl up in the recuperacoon with her. Meenah’s rarely in her own apartment, adjacent to Feferi’s, but she teased you mercilessly the first few times she caught you sneaking in.

She quit doing it when she noticed the bite-marks on the side of your neck.

The next time you saw Cronus, one of his eyes was bruised shut. You’ll admit you felt pretty flushed for Meenah for a while there.

You haven’t been back to your apartment in a week, since you’re a little afraid of what sort of retribution Cronus might have in mind. He copied your key ages ago, and the Condesce likes to encourage rivalry and competition among the royals, so she won’t have your locks changed.

Needless to say, you’ve been sticking pretty close to Fef.

There’s an addition to your party tonight, though, in the form of a lisping computer nerd with freaky-cute double horns and an attitude problem. You and Feferi take turns requesting evenings with him, and it always makes you feel a little icky paying the Condesce for it, but Feferi determined early on that Sollux was going to be one of her “special cases.” So you buy a lowblood for the night and keep the things you do secret, because a) you’d be laughed out of the city if anyone found out you weren’t fucking him, and b) you would follow Feferi Peixes to the mouth of hell and keep her secrets far past that.

Tonight is one of Sollux’s down nights. He has a lot of those. The not-down nights actually freak you out more, though, if only because the guy acts high as an indigo hopped up on sopor and Faygo and gets it in his head that he’s fucking invincible. You’ve had to call his handler a couple times to take him home early, most notably on the night you took him into the city to see a show and he managed to slip your guard, break into a jewelry store, and walk out wearing half the merchandise.

It’s not that you prefer the depressive episodes. But at least they don’t usually involve you having to guiltily explain to a disgruntled store clerk that your companion got a little rowdy and you will of course be paying for the damages.

He’s sitting in one of Feferi’s brightly-colored beanbag chairs, staring at the screen of his husktop while the nightly news plays in the background. He’s barely said three words since he got here.

Feferi returns from her kitchen with tea and plops down on the floor beside him.

“Water you lookin’ at?” she asks.

“Just some old pics,” he says.

“Well, don’t be shellfish! Share with the rest of the class!”

“It’s stupid. You don’t know any of them. You don’t have to pretend to give a shit.”

You reach over and pluck the laptop out of his hands, setting it up on the coffee table where you can all see it.

“She ain’t pretendin’, you big emo dork.”

“Lick my bulge, asshole.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“ _Boys_.”

You look at the photograph on the screen. It features a younger-looking Sollux actually smiling, arm in arm with a beaming girl who has some seriously glorious hair and a swanky fedora. The timestamp is from a little over a sweep ago.

“Damn,” you say. “She looks—”

“Just like Damara, I know,” Sollux bites out. You scowl at him.

“I was gonna say ‘happy.’”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. She’s prettier than Damara, anyway.”

Feferi tickles your sides.

“Somebody’s looking for brownie points!”

“Clam it, Fef.”

She squeals like she always does when you indulge her fish puns.

Sollux hasn’t looked away from the screen.

“Aradia, right?” you say. He nods, all absent and lost. You wonder if he has any idea how many quadrant flips he puts you through in a single day. Not that you’re in a quadrant, or anything. You just sort of want to be. In all of them.

You are such a fucking mess.

“She’s reel pretty,” Feferi says. 

“Yeah.”

“I remember her _Goodnight, Alterniearth_ interview. I thought she seemed super cool!”

You can see the muscles in Sollux’s throat work. Somehow, you’re better at telling when the guy is close to a breaking point than Feferi is. For all her charm and varying social graces, Fef can be a little oblivious.

“Maybe we oughtta talk about somefin else,” you murmur.

“Right!” Feferi says. She clicks to bring up the next image.

This one is much older, featuring a bunch of little kids clustered together in the boughs of what appears to be an epic tree house. It takes you a minute to recognize them, but you manage to pick out Sollux pretty quick (the double-horns are a dead giveaway), busy pulling a face at the camera. There’s a girl tugging at each of his arms, Aradia on the right. After some careful scrutiny, you recognize the girl on the left as Terezi with her terrifying grin. There’s a girl with horns shaped like cat ears hugging Terezi from behind (Nepeta Leijon, you realize), a girl wearing a pirate costume (holy fuck is that Vriska Serket in her pre-hottie days?) pressed up against Terezi’s side, and a tall, grimacing boy standing in the background who you almost don’t recognize as Equius Zahhak without his broken horn. Terezi’s other arm is looped around a much smaller troll’s neck, and you’d know that scowl anywhere now. Also the nubby horns.

“So cute!” Feferi says. “When was that?”

“Uh…I think we were three? We all visited TZ for her wiggling day.”

“Cool hive,” you say.

“Yeah, it was neat. AA and I barely had enough to pay the District crossing fee, but it was totally worth it. KK even smiled a couple times.”

“That must have been groundbreaking,” you say. “That is one grumpy little guy.”

Sollux snorts.

“You have no idea, ED.”

The alarm on Feferi’s watch beeps. She clicks it off, then sighs at her untouched tea.

“Alright, time for our meeting. Up you get.”

She hooks a hand under your elbow and the other under Sollux’s bicep, pulling both of you to your feet.

As you make your way across the grounds, Sollux hunched between you, he hisses, “It’s going to look weird that we’re just going to the human compound and not, like…out-out.”

Feferi links arms with him.

“Nah!” she chirps. “I told the Condesce we were all planning to have an orgy!”

Sollux blanches.

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Nope!”

You snicker, taking Sollux’s other arm.

“Yeah, didn’t you know? It’s going to be one wild night of debauchery, man. Me an’ Fef pimpin’ you out like you’re the finest skank in the Imperial Complex. Human junk all over you.”

“Like you even know what human junk looks like.”

“I’m a scientist. Of course I know what human junk looks like.”

“Ew.”

“It’s…not really ‘ew.’ Just kind of weird.”

“ _You’re_ weird.”

“ _Anyway_ , we’re in the clear!”

“Yeah, with a gross excuse.”

“Please, like anyone would want to touch your mutant body anyway,” you say (you kind of want to touch his mutant body oh god shut up brain shut up).

“In case you haven’t been paying attention to, uh, I dunno, _Kankri_ , mutants are apparently like fetish toys for you Capitol people.”

Feferi sighs.

“Oh god, that’s just so sad. Let’s not talk about it.”

You give Sollux a sideways look.

“Nobody has actually…I mean, other than me an’ Fef, nobody else has paid for you, have they?”

Sollux makes a puzzled face.

“It’s weird,” he says. “A couple of people showed interest when I first came here, but Roxy told me they all mysteriously retracted their offers.”

“What the shit?”

“Mmm,” says Feferi, and you resolve to grill her about this later.

A thought strikes you.

“Good glubbing fuck. Was Cronus was one of them?”

“Do you even have to ask that question? Of course he was.”

You growl.

“I hate that guy.”

Feferi giggles.

“Platonically, you bitch!”

“Yeah, he’s a major sleazeball,” Sollux says.

You keep walking and don’t add any further comment.

The four human kids have pretty nice digs, you have to admit. Not as nice as yours, of course, but at least on par with the Victors’ Suites. If you were in charge of providing their housing, you guess you’d want to keep genetically-enhanced super-kids happy, too.

Feferi has the access codes for the main gate and leads you through to the door for the common area. She knocks in a rhythm that you guess is probably supposed to be some kind of Super-Secret-Code-Knock.

The door flies open and Jade grins at you from inside the archway.

“Hi, guys! Come on in!”

You follow her into the relaxation block, where Dave, John, Rose, and Kanaya are fiddling with the remote control, hanging upside-down over the couch, knitting, and laying out trays of munchies, respectively. You waggle your eyebrows at Rose, who rolls her eyes. Kanaya hisses at you.

“Stop flirting with everything that moves,” Sollux tells you, and you…think he actually sounds a little jealous. Or maybe you’re imagining it. You’re probably imagining it.

“I take it your guardians are with their tributes?” Feferi asks.

John decides it’s time to be right-side up again. Rather than sit up like a normal person, he executes a levitating forward roll before plopping himself down on the couch. Dear sweet fuck, that is so creepy.

“Dirk and Roxy are out, but Dad should be here in a minute.”

“Oh my god, Dadbert’s coming? Sweet,” Dave says, almost genuinely, you note.

“What’s a Dadbert?” Sollux asks.

“Dad Egbert,” Jade supplies. “He’s nice. You’ll like him.”

Sollux shakes his head.

“I don’t get human custodianship.”

“Eh, well, ours are admittedly kind of fucked up even by human standards,” Jade says. “I mean, John and I call Mr. Egbert our dad, but we’re technically test-tube babies, so he’s more of an adopted parent. Our actual biological donors—”

“Yeah, I’m sure your human genetics are really fascinating to Eridork, but I really don’t need to know that much,” Sollux says.

There’s a knock on the door. Dave bounds to his feet. Actually bounds. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him be energetic.

“I’ll get it!”

He zips over to the door and opens it, revealing a very tall human adult wearing a fedora, which he takes off when he steps inside. You would never take that hat off if you had one like it. Fedoras are the shit.

You’ve only met the mastermind behind The Plan twice before. You have mixed feelings about humans, but you respect the hell out of this guy.

You’ll admit it’s partly because of the hat.

Egbert nods to your little group.

“Good evening, children.”

Everyone choruses their hellos, except for Sollux, who’s giving Egbert a wary look. You can’t really blame him; under the pressed shirt and slacks, the guy is blueblood strong.

Egbert turns to Sollux, smiling.

“You must be our newcomer. Sollux, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

It’s weird to hear someone so prone to rudeness speak with such deference. You thought you’d like hearing Sollux sound like a cowed lowblood. You…don’t, actually.

Egbert must pick up on his skittishness, because he doesn’t try to shake Sollux’s hand, instead suggesting that everyone sit down and have a bite to eat before you talk business.

Sollux reasserts his bitchiness by continually stealing crackers off your plate. All is right with the world.

“Well,” Rose says once the noise of chewing has died down. “Now that everyone has enjoyed their less-than-healthy dinners, I suggest we get straight to the meat of things.”

“Heh,” Dave says. Rose smirks at him.

“How interesting that you would snicker at the mention of meat. Is there something you’d like to share, David?”

“You’re evil, sis.”

“You knew this already.”

Mr. Egbert clears his throat. Everyone else falls silent. Egbert turns his deceptively mild gaze on Sollux.

“I think,” he says, “it is important for us to establish why you’ve decided to join us tonight, Sollux.”

It was your idea to bring him here. Fef endorsed it wholeheartedly. It’s your necks on the line.

Apparently, Sollux decides to be direct. He points at you and Feferi.

“These two tell me you have plans of revolution,” he says. “I want in.”

Mr. Egbert just nods. Jade looks at Dave. Rose looks at John. Then they all look at Sollux.

“You understand that these plans are not immediate,” Rose says.

“Yeah.”

“And you understand what would happen to you if you let something slip.”

“Yes.”

The humans look between each other again.

“He’d be a valuable asset,” Feferi pipes up. “You should see what he can do with computers.”

“Yeah, Roxy mentioned that,” Dave says.

“A final question,” Egbert says, his gaze growing more focused as he looks Sollux in the eye. “What are your motivations for joining us?”

The look that passes across Sollux’s face gives you chills.

“The bitch sitting on that throne is systematically killing everyone I’ve ever given a shit about,” he says, slow and poisonous. “I now know firsthand what it looks like when your moirail steps on a landmine.” His voice wobbles there, but only a little. “No one should have to know that.”

Silence. And then John butts in with, “Damn, if it wasn’t for the lisp, I would totally vote for him as, like, group motivational speaker.”

Rose rolls her eyes.

“Really, John. Show some tact.”

“I think what John means,” Mr. Egbert says, “is welcome to the movement, Sollux.”

He holds out his hand. After a moment, Sollux shakes it.

“So…what exactly is this glorious plan of yours?”

“We’re planning a multi-faceted attack,” Rose says. “The Condesce believes that John, Jade, Dave, and myself are grooming our abilities so that we may one day take up leading positions in her army. And we will do just that when we reach the agreed-upon age. Then we bide until the time is right to implement phase two.”

“Phase two?”

Feferi sits up straighter, lifting her chin. To you, she looks more regal sitting on a couch than the Condesce could ever hope to look sitting on her throne.

“Then,” Feferi says, “I challenge Her Imperious Condescension for the throne, as is my birthright.”

Sollux’s mouth hangs open. He stares at her the same way you stare at her, awed and reverential.

“Jesus,” he whispers.

“At that point, we will have most of the Imperial Army under our command should we need to utilize or restrain them,” Rose continues. Then she sighs. “This is, of course, the extremely simplified version. There are still numerous issues to be worked out, such as the matter of the Empress’s dominance over the media and public opinion. We still have not found a way to deal with that as of yet.”

“Still,” Sollux mutters. “That’s…yeah, that’s a…thing.”

“For the time being, we’ll put your technical skills to work primarily for the purposes of gathering intelligence,” Rose says. “If you can—”

“Hold that thought,” Jade says, turning up the volume on the T.V.

You look up at the screen as the room gets very quiet.

“—tuning in, we have just received the official threat level rankings for this half-sweep’s tributes,” the newscaster is saying. “Just as a reminder, the ranks are assigned from level one to level ten, with level one classified as ‘Represents no danger’ and level ten classified as ‘Represents maximum danger.’ Here are the contenders ordered by rank…”

Sollux curls his hands into fists. Feferi takes one and holds it. After a moment’s hesitation, you do the same (his hand is warm and it feels strange and wrong but not). Out of the corner of your eye, you see Rose putting an arm around Kanaya’s shoulders.

“Level one contenders: Morien Skahdi, District Five. Gaddin Cetani, District Eleven. Tesnii Maenad, District Twelve. Level two contenders: Gamzee Makara, District Five.”

Sollux sighs.

“He’s so doomed.”

“Kaydhe Chorla, District Seven. Level three contenders: Mimett Nicasa, District Two. Kadota Pavian, District Ten. Level four contenders: Tavros Nitram, District Three.”

“Not bad,” Kanaya says. “I feared it would be much worse.”

“Basiah Isolae, District Seven. Caelan Rohese, District Twelve. Level five contenders: Kuroan Gabrie, District Eight. Atasha Ivonet, District Eleven. Level six contenders: Equius Zahhak, District One.”

Kanaya giggles, a nervous, forced sound.

“He’s so STRONG,” she says, and Sollux snorts.

“Terezi Pyrope, District Four.”

Sollux and Kanaya let out near-identical whoops of triumph.

“Atta girl, TZ!”

“Azrain Sadena, District Eight. Itonis Hiromi, District Ten. Level seven contenders: Nepeta Leijon, District One.”

“Damn, NP,” Sollux says, laughing a little.

“Jasill Meehan, District Six. Level eight contenders: Vriska Serket, District Three.”

Kanaya lets out another hysterical little laugh as Sollux groans.

“Of course.”

“Vidahl Isarah, District Nine. Level nine contenders…”

Sollux shifts his eyes to Kanaya.

“Did we miss KK?”

Kanaya keeps her gaze locked on the screen, her face bloodless.

“…Teluca Fiaatt, District Two. Himara Kobaas, District Six. Bedisa Ujarak, District Nine.”

Sollux is shaking his head.

“No. No way.”

“Please…” Kanaya whispers.

“Level ten contenders.”

The newscaster pauses, blinks at the teleprompter like she’s sure she’s missed something. Nobody gets assigned a ten. It’s never happened in your lifetime.

“Level ten contenders,” she repeats, still blinking in confusion. “Karkat Vantas, District Four.”

Kanaya puts her face in her hands. Sollux stares at the screen, his face frozen with shock.

“Oh god,” he whispers, and then he’s hyperventilating. “Oh god oh god oh god they’re trying to kill him—”

“Shh,” says Feferi. She puts an arm around him and rests her head on his shoulder.

“She rigged this—I know she rigged this, she’d never give him a fair chance to win, she’d never—they’ll _kill_ him—”

You lean your forehead against his.

“Easy, Sol. Breathe.”

When he cries, it’s the worst sound you’ve ever heard.

 

**Karkat: Cope with Shock**

You can’t look away from the television, and you don’t dare blink for fear of dislodging the wetness gathering along the lower lids of your eyes.

You wanted the world to know you were a badass.

You did not want to go into the Games with a government-arranged target on your back.

Terezi is gripping your knee. You are gripping a pillow. Mr. Strider is gripping the remote.

After a moment, he sets it down and lays his hand on the top of your head.

 

**Porrim: Cope with Your Friends**

Aranea has been talking non-stop for eight minutes, trying to retrieve Kankri from whatever shell he drew into when the rankings were announced. He has not said one word in response, and you know Aranea must be getting desperate.

“…and it’s not as if the rankings determine everything, after all. Just think of the countless cases of low-rankers who surprised the audience with hidden talents. For example, in the Games three sweeps ago, I’m sure you’ll recall—”

“There is a particular pattern with tributes assigned very high ranks,” Kankri says at last, his voice detached. He’s not looking at her. He’s not looking at any of you. He’s doing the thing he does sometimes where he stares into the empty air like he can form from the invisible particles the answers he wants to find. “They become immediate targets. The higher the threat level, the more desperate the others will be to neutralize the threat.”

Staring out the dining room window, Kurloz nods.

“Or maybe,” Aranea presses on, “they’ll leave him alone because they’re afraid of him.”

Kankri levels her with a flat look.

“He’s smaller than I was at his age.”

Aranea flounders.

“Still, maybe—”

“Serket,” Meenah sighs, “Just…give it rest, a’ight?”

Aranea slumps in her chair, leaning her elbows on the table. Cronus pulls a chair out and sits down next to Kankri.

“Rough luck, chief,” he says. He slips an arm around Kankri’s shoulders and you hold in a hiss. “I’m here for you.”

You’re more pleased than you’d like to admit when Kankri plucks the offending arm from around his neck.

“Kindly keep your hands to yourself.”

Cronus sulks.

“Not the best set of circumstances under which to have a reunion, is it?” Aranea says, sighing.

No one answers her. After another long word-drought, you look at Kankri.

“You think it was done deliberately.”

He meets your gaze and nods. You shoot Kurloz an anxious glance. Of the people in the room, he and Cronus are the closest to the Games politics. And while Cronus is an utter buffoon, you’re never quite sure of where Kurloz stands.

What he signs to Kankri chills you straight through to your guts:

_I say to you again: there is fate in this, motherfucker. Just you wait and see._

*

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	9. Tributes: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank god the holidays are over. O.o 'Nuff said.

**Karkat: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry**

The night before the Games, the Imperial Palace lays out its finest gilded tablecloths and hosts a banquet. News networks sabotage one another for coverage slots, and the elites of Imperial society begin bidding months in advance on tickets to the event for a chance to mingle with tributes, survivors, and Games personnel.

Appropriately, it’s come to be called the Last Supper.

Rather than use the prep room in the tributes’ compound, each fashion team is provided with a set of rooms in the palace to get their tributes ready for what is always by far the fanciest of the pre-Games events. Porrim leaves you in Kanaya’s care and whisks Terezi away to the adjoining room. You can’t stop looking around. Everything is marble and hardwood and gold, polished to a mirror shine. Even in your white tux, you feel thoroughly outclassed. You wonder if that’s the passive-aggressive message behind bringing the tributes here: _look at what you will never have_.

Kanaya keeps running her hands over the shoulders of your suit, like she thinks she’s going to find wrinkles or dust to brush away.

“Kanaya,” you say. “Kanaya. Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Bugging. And meddling. And _fussing_.”

Kanaya worries at her lower lip with a fang.

“I’m sorry.”

She straightens your collar instead. You sigh and let her.

To maintain the red-and-white theme, you’re wearing a red pleated sash-thing that Kanaya informs you is called a cummerbund. You think that is the stupidest word you’ve ever heard.

“A stupid word it may be, but it does not alter the fact that you look quite handsome, if I do say so myself.”

You check the mirror. You do look handsome.

“I think you’re a witch,” you mutter, shaking your head. Kanaya smiles.

“It helps that I have a decent model to work with.”

“Oh, _decent_. I see.”

“Would you prefer I called you precious again?”

“Ugh. No.”

She doesn’t let you see Terezi, which makes you anxious.

“She’ll be entering from the other side of the ballroom with the other female tributes. They’ll announce your names in order of district. When they call your name, all you have to do is walk down the stairs. Terezi will do the same on the opposite staircase. You’ll meet in the middle, link arms, and cross the dance floor, after which you’ll be escorted to your seats.”

“That doesn’t explain why you won’t let me see her beforehand.”

Kanaya’s smile somehow manages to be both mischievous and gentle.

“The room will be packed with members of the press who will be capturing your every reaction,” she says. “And I want that reaction to be genuine.”

You are not comforted in the slightest.

Too soon for your liking, Kanaya is shepherding you out into the hall, where a pair of Imperial guards stands waiting.

“Porrim and I will be at your table,” Kanaya tells you, and you find that makes you feel better. “We just have to get ready. I’ll see you soon.”

You nod, barely breathing, and allow the guards to lead you through the echoing marble halls. You wonder just how many gold candelabras one palace really needs.

They bring you a few floors up and deposit you in a hallway where several other male tributes are already waiting. There are boxes of tape lined up on the floor, each marked with a name and district, forming a line. The guards nudge you toward the fourth slot.

“Stay there until they start calling names. When the person in front of you moves, you can move up a box. Got it?”

“Gee, no, I think that’s a little too much geometry for my poor mutant brain to handle,” you grouse, but no one hits you like the last time you mouthed off to guards. They just walk away shaking their heads. You glance around the hallway, almost relieved to see more rows of guards lining the walls on either side. You don’t think you’d want to be left alone in a room full of twitchy tributes, most of whom don’t like you on principle.

The only boy currently in front of you has curly hair and curly horns to match, like two spirals sticking off the sides of his head. He keeps glancing back at you in a way that he must think is surreptitious. You sigh.

“If you want to stare, just go ahead.”

He startles, turns around. His eyes are wide in his face and gray like yours. He looks…really fucking young, now that you think about it.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—I’m Mimett.”

You tilt you head on one side.

“Uh. Yeah. Hi. I’m—”

“Karkat Vantas, six solar sweeps, wiggling day on the twelfth bilunar perigee of the sixth dark season's equinox, height: 149.86 centimeters, weight—” 

“Okay, no, stop, this is getting freaky and offensive. What are you, my number one stalker or something?”

Mimett clasps his hands together, looking at his shoes.

“No,” he mumbles. “I know this sort of stuff about everyone. I just hang onto minutia.”

You stare.

“Okay then. Word to the wise: spilling all that stuff the first time you talk to somebody might not be the best way to make friends.”

“Uh. Yes sir. I know. It’s just a nervous habit.”

“Never call me sir again. We’re the same age.”

Mimett shrugs, smiling in a helpless sort of way.

“I guess.”

“What’s to guess? You’re six, right?”

His hands twitch and cling tighter to each other, as if for comfort.

“I had my wiggling day two days before the lottery,” he says. “So.”

You sort of hate everything in this moment.

“That’s such bullshit,” you say at last. Mimett smiles like only a wiggler can smile upon hearing someone say a bad word. Jesus. You can’t let yourself like this kid.

“I don’t mind,” he blurts out, and then flushes yellow. “Um. I mean. That you’re a—a you-know-what.”

You grin, all teeth and threat display.

“A what? Go on, spit it out. An asshole? A badass?”

“I—actually, I was referring to…your…hemochromatic difference.”

How many times can you gape at this kid in one conversation?

“My…jesus, kid, just say ‘mutation.’ I am a mutant. That is the word.”

Mimett makes a worried, frowny little face.

“It’s just…that word seems kind of rude to me,” he says, so quietly. “And it’s so…all-inclusive. Like, if I call you that, it doesn’t leave room for you to be anything else.”

Oh god. Oh no. You like this kid. Damn, damn, and triple damn.

You sigh.

“Nice to meet you, Mimett.”

“Yeah. You too.” He fidgets, looks at you guiltily through his bangs. “Also, I’m supposed to give you a message from my district partner.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“Okay.”

Mimett clears his throat, looking uncomfortable.

“She says that once we’re in the Games, she’s going to flay you alive and drain all your mutant blood into the dirt where it belongs oh god I’m so sorry I said that.”

You swallow, your throat tight.

“I take it that last part was you, not her.”

“Yes. Sorry. She threatened to break one of my horns if I didn’t tell you.”

“They’re just words,” you say, even though you doubt the threat is empty. “Remind me: which one is your district partner?”

“Teluca Fiaatt, hemocaste #0021cb, height—”

“Yeah, I remember. Great.”

“Sorry.”

“Quit apologizing. You didn’t make your district partner a caste-happy psycho.”

“She’s…not very nice”

“No shit.”

You’re distracted by the arrival of Tavros and Equius as they’re shuffled into the line. Tavros has on a taupe suit that accents his broad shoulders nicely. You’re pleased to see that Equius’s fashion team has finally stopped putting him in hideous blue suits, opting this time for a traditional black suit with a blue dress shirt, his long hair swept back in a ponytail. Better.

You don’t know why you’re analyzing your friends’ outfits. Kanaya must be rubbing off on you.

Equius doesn’t say anything to you (still pretending he doesn’t know you, you gave him that out, no sense feeling angry about it now), but he looks you up and down and gives an approving little nod as he passes you. Tavros takes his place in the tape-box directly in front of you, then shuffles from foot to foot before turning around to you.

“Um. Hi.”

“Um hi to you, too.”

“I think. Um. Maybe you are making fun of me?”

“That’s the one.”

“Oh. Well. Um. I guess that is, just sort of a thing you, do. But, don’t underestimate, the savagery of my, um, rebuttal.”

“Bring it, Nitram.”

Tavros screws up his face in concentration as he looks you over.

Finally, he says, “Um. Your horns are, really nubby.”

You facepalm.

In front of Tavros, Mimett pipes up again.

“So, are you guys kismeses?”

You splutter. So does Tavros.

“What? Oh my fuck, no. No. Jesus. Kid, if you think that was hateflirting, you have either got your head screwed on sideways or you have a seriously pathetic concept of what constitutes blackrom.”

“Yes, and I would like to state, for the record, that, I think I could, um, find a much more loathsome caliginous partner, thank you very much.”

“I don’t know if that was an insult or a compliment, Tav.”

“Um. An insult, I think. Because I really just find you sort of. Um. Annoying. And noisy. But not really, hate-worthy.”

“Ouch.”

“But also kind of nice, I guess?”

You sigh, leaning around Tavros to talk to Mimett.

“Mimett, meet Tavros, King of Waffling. I think you two would get along.”

The kid beams at Tavros.

“It’s always nice to make new friends!”

“Um. Yes?”

A match made in fucking heaven.

Someone tugs your earlobe.

You turn, and the world goes soft around the edges.

“Hey, motherfucker.”

It will never stop being weird to see Gamzee looking clean and put-together, hair tamed and face scrubbed of any trace of paint. You think he looks nice. You mumble something to that effect, and he gives you his dorky, fangs-akimbo grin.

“Aw, thanks, best friend. You’re lookin’ awful motherfuckin’ handsome yourself.”

You want to bury your face in his chest until your nerves stop pinging off the walls of your skin, but you’ve never been much for PDA. You doubt Gamzee would care, though.

“You excited to get your chow on, motherfucker?” he asks.

You breathe a short laugh out through your nose.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Not nervous, are you?”

You shake your head. Gamzee just smiles at you, like he knows better.

“Alright, faces forward everybody!” one of the guards barks. “They’re about to start calling names, so listen up!”

Reluctantly, you turn back around, your bloodpusher tripping behind your ribs like it’s a wiggler trying out a jump-rope for the first time.

Gamzee’s fingers curl around the very tips of yours, and your bloodpusher skips in a different way.

Now that it’s quiet in the hallway, you can hear the faint strains of a string quartet somewhere below you, playing over a crowd of people talking in low, civil voices.

“And now, ladies and gentletrolls, presenting this session’s tributes,” someone calls. “From District One, Nepeta Leijon and Equius Zahhak!”

Equius disappears from view to the sound of polite clapping. The line moves forward. You step into Tavros’s box.

“From District Two, Teluca Fiaatt and Mimett Nicasa!”

Forward another box. Wait.

“From District Three, Vriska Serket and Tavros Nitram!”

Tavros squares his shoulders and marches forward and down. You move up again, and you can just see the top few steps of the curved marble staircase you’ll be descending.

You jump when you hear your name.

“From District Four, Terezi Pyrope and Karkat Vantas!”

For a horrible moment, you’re frozen. Gamzee puts a hand in the small of your back and gives you a gentle push.

“Go on, motherfucker. Get your dazzle on.”

You lift your chin and walk.

The stairs overlook an immense ballroom filled with people, some milling, some seated at round tables. The floor is gleaming white marble inlaid with gold patterns. There’s a long table sitting on a raised platform to the front of the room, at which the four royal heirs are seated, the two fuchsia girls on the right and the two violet boys on the left. You recognize the smaller of the two as the boy who helped you in the labs.

And in the center of the table sits the Empress herself, watching you descend.

You nearly trip down the stairs.

You’re focusing so hard on not falling down the stairs that you don’t look over at Terezi until you’ve reached the bottom.

Everything around you goes still.

She’s wearing a floor-length white dress bedecked with tiny, glittering beads, a fluttering red silk sash tied around her waist. Her hands are encased in red lace gloves that climb nearly to her elbows. There are delicate white flowers woven into her hair. She looks ethereal and breathtaking and still exactly like the girl you grew up with.

You’ve seen pictures of human weddings. It suddenly becomes clear to you exactly what Porrim and Kanaya were going for.

She reaches for your arm. You loop your own through it, moving on autopilot. You can’t take your eyes off her. She gives you a crooked smile.

“Hi, hot stuff.”

“Aksjlwskwej,” you say, or some close equivalent.

“You are the Eloquent One. It’s you.”

“Shut up. You’re beautiful,” you manage.

You don’t often feel like a lucky troll, but you can’t think of too many other people who have ever seen Terezi blush.

You’re led to your seats by a pair of high-ranking Imperial soldiers in dress uniforms. Their boots are so shiny. You don’t know if you think that’s ridiculous or enviable.

Your circular table seats nine, but you and Terezi are the first ones to arrive. You’ve heard rumors that even some elements of the seating arrangements are determined by who’s willing to pay what to sit next to whom. You go to look at the name cards and wind up getting distracted by the fucking gold cutlery. You pick up a gleaming fork and hold it up for Terezi to see.

“Do you suppose it’s plated? Because I sure don’t.”

“Mmm, nope, probably solid.”

You glare at the fork as if it has personally offended you. It sort of has.

“I probably could have sold one of these for a sweep’s worth of food back home.”

You startle a little at the press of Terezi’s hand on your knee. You lower your fork and glance up.

…and up, and up.

The fork slips out of your fingers.

The Empress smiles at you.

“Well ain’t you two just downright glubbin’ precious. Terezi, girl, you’s quite the li'l showstopper. And Karkat, I been herring the most finteresting things ‘bout you.”

You snort at the fish puns. You can’t help it. Terror makes you do crazy things. Terezi’s hand tightens on your leg.

But Her Imperious Condescension is still smiling.

“Ain’t it just so nice to chit-chat like we’s all old clamrades? I mean, that’s why you be laughin’, right, gutterblood?”

Your bloodpusher drops right out of your chest and plunges into your stomach. You feel like an animal in a trap.

You’ve never been so happy to see Mr. Strider and Kankri as they approach from the left.

“Good evening, Your Condescension,” Kankri says, and you find it disturbing how steady his tone is, how calm he seems in her presence. “I wasn’t aware you would be joining our table this evening.”

The Condesce turns to him, still all smiles.

“Oh, Kanny, darlin’, you know you’s my favorite chatterbox, but I’m jus’ payin’ a visit. I like to be frondly, y’know.”

Kankri’s expression is so bland, so carefully neutral.

“Of course, Your Condescension.”

The Condesce turns her attention to Mr. Strider.

“Dirky, baby, you caught yourself two live ones this time ‘round,” she says. “Clever li’l Miss Pyrope and her pet mutant. He cleans up alright for street trash, don’t he?”

You can’t be sure of the face you’re making. Terezi’s grip on your leg is threatening to cut off your circulation.

Mr. Strider says something in return. You don’t hear what it is. There’s a rushing noise in your ears that’s too loud to hear over.

The Condesce circles around behind your chairs. She readjusts one of the flowers in Terezi’s hair, her claws misleadingly dainty.

“Well, best of luck to you, Rezi-girl. And you too, Kitkat.” Then she leans down and brings her lips close to your ear. She smells like perfume and steel.

“Best run fast as you can when you hear that starting gun, darlin’, ‘cause everyone got their marks on you.”

She drags her claw-tips up the back of your neck when she straightens up. You do not give her the satisfaction of seeing your shiver.

“What did she say to you?” Terezi hisses as Mr. Strider and _oh son of a whore, of fucking course_ Kankri take their seats. Your throat feels too tight to answer.

A shadow falls over you. You don’t look up immediately, still too shaken by the Condesce to deal with whatever new hell has decided to come looming your way.

“Ah, Kurloz,” Kankri says. “I thought I saw your name on one of these cards. Will you be joining us?”

No one answers. Finally, you look up.

And you sit back in your chair.

It becomes apparent very quickly why no one spoke in answer to Kankri’s question, because the first thing you notice about the guy standing across from you is that his mouth is sewn shut. The second thing you notice is that he’s huge, full-grown highblood huge, with long, wavy horns, wild hair, and half-lidded blue-violet eyes. You are ninety-nine percent certain you’re looking at Gamzee’s ancestor.

And he’s looking at you. _Looking_ -looking. It gives you the shakes, being stared at like that.

He moves his hands very quickly, wrists rotating and fingers flicking, still watching you. You blink stupidly for a moment before you figure out he’s using sign language.

“Uh…I don’t…”

To your surprise, Kankri comes to the rescue. You will not let that in any way affect how you feel about him.

“He says, ‘Don’t let her scare you. Focus.’”

You blink.

“Uh. Tell him…I say thanks, I guess.”

Kankri very nearly smiles.

“He’s not deaf.”

“Oh,” you say, and feel stupid. Kurloz smiles. It makes him look a _lot_ like Gamzee. He makes a gesture that you can pretty well interpret as a ‘don’t worry about it,’ and takes the seat directly across from you.

You scan the ballroom for familiar faces. A few tables over, you spot Vriska, stunning in a cobalt dress with a low-cut neck that dips to her breastbone, the V-shape held together by delicate silver lace sewn like spider webs. She’s engaged in what appears to be a very lively discussion with Aranea Serket, who sits across from her. Tavros just looks down at his empty plate, hunched and silent.

In the other direction, you see Gamzee sitting with his district partner. Neither of them are talking. If your guess is right and this Kurloz guy is Gamzee’s ancestor, you sort of wonder why he’s sitting here with you and not with his descendent.

You move your gaze back in the other direction, skimming past Vriska’s table again. There’s a boy sitting down next to Tavros now. Your eyes almost skip over him, but then you see the double horns.

You rocket up out of your chair so fast it nearly tips over.

“Karkat!” Terezi hisses in alarm.

Mr. Strider hooks a finger in your cummerbund and pulls you back.

“Easy, tiger, no running off just yet.”

“Fuck you. That’s my friend over there. Just let me—”

“Sit, pupa.”

You snarl as he tugs you back down into your chair.

“What’s your problem?”

“My problem is I don’t want you to go charging over there only to have my wife snap your neck because she assumes you’re a security threat.”

“I wasn’t going to _charge_.”

“Sure, kid. Look, just stay in your chair until other people start moving around. Food first. Socialize later.”

You grumble at your plate. Fucking palace food had better be worth it.

Kanaya and Porrim join you a little while later, Kanaya wearing a knee-length green silk dress with black lace stockings and Porrim wearing a strappy little number in black that shows more skin and tattoos than any of her previous getups. You avert your eyes and hope you’re not blushing.

Kanaya takes the chair between you and Mr. Strider while Porrim settles between Terezi and Kankri.

“Goodness, Porrim, sometimes I wonder why you even bother with clothes anymore,” Kankri says. Wow, rude. To your surprise, though, Porrim actually laughs.

“Have you considered that maybe it’s not my wardrobe that’s changing, dear, but that you’re just becoming more of a prude?”

Kankri huffs.

“I’d hardly say I’m prudish. Just sensible.”

“Not all clothing is meant to be sensible. Some of it is meant to be fun.”

Kankri gives her a dubious side-eye.

“And that’s your idea of fun?”

Porrim wiggles her eyebrows.

“You know it is.”

It’s very satisfying to see your ancestor flustered.

“Why do you _say_ these things to me?”

“Because I like to make you blush.”

“You’re horrible, Porrim.”

You entertain the extremely weird and slightly squicky thought that they act like a pair of moirails. Oh sweet jesus you hope that’s not true. Ugh. Things you never wanted to think about.

Two other guests join your table, sitting on either side of Kurloz. The one who takes the chair by Mr. Strider you recognize as Jack Noir, the weapons coordinator. You’d kind of liked him until he assigned you a ten. Judging by the amount of bling hanging off the guy who sits next to Kankri, you assume he’s one of the Capitol inhabitants who paid out the nose to sit there.

You ignore everyone else as much as you can and talk to Terezi and Kanaya, mostly because everyone else at the table either annoys you or gives you the creeps. You ignore Mr. Strider flirting at Jack Noir, you ignore Kurloz staring at you, you ignore Porrim pale-flirting with Kankri, and you absolutely ignore the other guest trailing his fingers up and down the back of Kankri’s neck. You also ignore the tension in Kankri’s shoulders and the way his eyes stay fixed on the tablecloth, unmoving. You especially ignore the fact that you know exactly what’s going through Kankri’s head: _maybe if I sit very still, he’ll get bored and stop touching me._

Finally, the food arrives and provides a much-needed distraction. And…okay, yeah, the food is worth all the bullshit: steak bites and balsamic grilled vegetable skewers for appetizers, mixed greens with champagne vinaigrette for the salad course, Mediterranean penne pasta for the pre-course, a choice of lamb with mint sauce or roast duck with apple glaze for the main course (you demand both), and chocolate cake drizzled with raspberry sauce for dessert.

You realize after you’ve ordered your second piece of cake that everyone at the table is staring at you. You glare around at them.

“What?” you ask with your mouth full, and Terezi snickers. Jack Noir shakes his head.

“I got a healthy appetite myself, kid, but jesus fuck, I’ve never seen anybody your size pack it away like that.”

You shovel another bite of cake into your mouth purely out of spite.

“You’re gonna make yourself sick,” Mr. Strider says, but he looks like he wants to laugh.

“And I see my lessons on table manners didn’t stick,” Kanaya chimes in.

Kurloz gestures with his hands. Kankri translates, “I think Karkat has the right idea.”

You give Kurloz a terse nod.

“Thank you.”

Kurloz signs again. Kankri blanches.

“ _Kurloz_.”

Kurloz shrugs, his lips curving up in a small smile.

“I’m not translating that.”

“What?” you ask, starting to feel paranoid. “Did he say something gross? He said something gross, didn’t he?”

“Not…exactly.”

You glower at Kankri.

“Just tell me.”

Kankri sighs, his gaze slipping away from you.

“He said, ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’”

You set down your fork, wishing you hadn’t asked.

“Oh.”

There’s a lull in conversation.

Then Jack Noir sighs.

“Fuck it. Hey, waiter! Yeah, you! Bring me more cake!”

He’s only got the one eye and he’s always sort of squinting, but you’re pretty sure he just winked at you. You feel like you could almost like him again.

After the dessert course, people start getting up and mingling. You note that the tributes mostly stay in their chairs, looking uncomfortable.

You say fuck that noise. You’re going to go talk to Sollux. Mr. Strider lets you go this time.

When you get to his table, he’s not there, and neither is the female handler with the brightly-colored hair.

Vriska’s still there, of course. She grins at you.

“Looking for your mutant buddy?”

“Unless you have something helpful to say, Vriska, just shut your flap.”

“Oh, fine then. I guess you don’t want to know where Thollux is.”

You grit your teeth.

“Where is he?”

“Ask nice.”

“No.”

“Then no dice.”

“Okay, a) don’t rhyme, and b) don’t use your stupid dice puns, you fucking FLARP nerd. Where’s Sollux?”

Vriska rolls her eyes.

“Roxy had to escort him home. Guess somebody’s developed a bit of a drinking habit in the last half-sweep.”

You punch the edge of the table.            

“Goddamnit.”

“It’s a crying shame, truly,” Vriska says. “Because god knows the kid had enough issues already. I mean, who’d want anything to do with him now that he’s even more of a pathetic mess than he used to be?”

“Hey, Vriska, guess what? You’re a bitch,” you snap, and stalk away.

You nearly walk straight into the troll girl with the long glossy hair and the tri-tipped horns. Teluca. The one who wants to flay you alive.

She smiles a dreamy sort of smile at you. The slash you’d cut over her mouth left a scar.

She draws a finger across her throat.

You speed back to the relative safety of your table.

“Okay, fuck socializing. Socializing is not happening,” you say, your bloodpusher racing. Terezi pats you on the back.

Jack Noir leans back in his chair, picking at his nails with a steak knife.

“That girl from District Two scare you?”

You bristle.

“No.”

“Huh. I didn’t take you for an idiot. She should scare you. Nasty little piece of work, that one.”

“Yeah, thanks, I’d already figured that out.”

Noir goes on picking his nails, his voice overly casual.

“She’s deadly with knives in hand-to-hand. Only reason she wasn’t ranked a ten’s ‘cause her aim’s not quite as good when she throws ‘em.”

You stare at him. He doesn’t look up at you, but you’re pretty sure he just gave you a tip. Before you can thank him, Mr. Strider leans down to you.

“Listen for the change in the music.”

You turn to frown at him, baffled, but then you hear it, the tempo shift, the change in timing to the one-two-three pattern he drilled into you. You look at Terezi. She looks back, then glances up at Mr. Strider. He nods.

You take her hand and move to the front of the room, directly in front of the high table. No one else is on the dance floor, so you’re hyper-aware of every eye in the room turning in your direction, along with every camera and probably every viewer in every hive across the planet.

Terezi squeezes your hands, and everyone else melts away.

Your feet fall into an easy pattern, one-two-three, one-two-three, and Terezi moves with you, weightless, effortless. No one speaks, and you imagine that you’re alone in the ballroom, just a boy and girl dancing for the hell of it. You’re smiling, you think.

When you twirl her, her skirt billows with the momentum and you think of sails on the high sea, light catching off the beaded fabric and glittering like ocean foam under the stars. She takes the lead from you and you follow the pull of her hand, reeling you back to her. Her arms go around you and she leans you back, farther, farther, farther, almost to the floor, but for once, you trust, you trust _her_ , and she doesn’t drop you, and there’s only one other person in the world you trust that much and you’ve made up your mind the second Terezi relinquishes the lead again. You still have her by the hand. She follows you as you wind your way through the tables until you reach Gamzee.

You told Strider you would never choose between them, and you meant it.

You extend your other hand to him.

He looks at you and smiles, then allows you to lead him back to the dance floor with you. A rush of whispers whips through the crowd before the hush drapes back over them.

You’re shocked for only a second when Gamzee lets go of your hand. Then he holds a palm up, close to yours but not quite touching, and begins to move, mirroring you without contact, a pale courtship dance that makes you tear up because you know he only knows this for you, this romantic, antiquated thing.

Terezi slips an arm around your waist and takes your other hand, and Gamzee reaches across you to tap his fingers under her chin, the gesture sharp, a dare, a traditional caliginous challenge: _can you look at me without backing down?_ And somehow all three of you move together, trading leads, trading partners. You can feel the energy between you, theirs running through you and yours pouring out to them, and for the first time in your life, you aren’t afraid of anything.

When the music stops, Terezi kisses you, then turns you to Gamzee, who kisses your forehead. Everything feels warm and glowing. You all bow to each other.

The next thing you know, you’re back in your seat and there’s noise again, people clapping and whistling. You glance toward the high table. The heirs and heiresses are on their feet applauding. The younger of the two girls is actually bouncing a little. Your gaze moves to the Empress.

She’s looking directly at you. Smiling. Not a pleased smile.

_Fuck her._

You hold the eye contact and raise your chin to her.

The look she gives you in return promises death.

 

**Be Nepeta**

You lie awake to the steady rhythm of your moirail’s bloodpusher beating in his chest, his chin resting heavy on your head. You listen to him breathe and tangle your fingers with his. He squeezes your hand, just barely, but it’s enough to almost hurt, an ache you know well. It makes you miss home. You’re not sure how long your feelings jam has been going; a long time, you guess. You’re both tired and running out of words.

“Is there anything else you would like to say?” Equius asks.

You can feel the cool place behind your horns where you know his hand is hovering, curved around the back of your head just barely touching your hair because he’s afraid he’ll accidentally crush your skull. You lean your head back against his palm and purr as loud as you can, communication without words. _I know you. I trust you._

“Pale for you.”

“And I for you.”

You lapse into companionable silence and allow yourself to take comfort in the familiar.

In the morning, everything will be different.

 

**Be Vriska**

You lie awake to the noise of your own thoughts. You wonder if Tavros is sleeping. You doubt it, the big scaredy-wiggler.

You wonder where Terezi is.

You wonder if she’s wondering about you. Not that you care.

You wonder if your lusus has eaten anyone since you left.

You wonder what will happen to her if you don’t come home.

But of course you’re going to go home. You’re a winner. You’re a survivor. You’ve had to be tougher than all these kids. And you’ll show them. You still have a trick up your sleeve, after all.

In the morning, everything will be different.

 

**Be Tavros**

You lie awake wondering if all your friends are lying awake. You hope Nepeta and Equius are together. You’re sure they are. You also hope that Terezi and Karkat are together, and that maybe Gamzee is with them, or with someone, because you know how lonely he gets. No one should be lonely on a night like this. Not even Vriska.

You make-believe courage for yourself and tap on her door. She doesn’t answer, of course, and you pace back to your desk feeling dumb.

You’re starting to drift off over your husktop when you hear a sound in your room.

You’re not entirely surprised to find that it’s Gamzee. You really don’t know how he moves around like that.

“Um. Hello. Should I, even ask how you got in?”

“Nah. Not motherfuckin’ important, Tavbro.”

“Okay. Well. Hi.”

“Hey, motherfucker.”

He sounds so weird, sad like Gamzee never sounds. You know he must feel sad on account of the aforementioned loneliness, but he’s never _sounded_ sad like this. He shuffles over to you, hands in his pockets and head drooping low. Then he kneels down in front of your chair, folds his arms on your knees, and lays his head down on them. You don’t know what to do, so your hand hovers awkwardly over his head.

“Would it be okay if maybe I got my sleepover on in here?” he murmurs.

You finally let your hand rest on his head. He’s your friend, and maybe the only one who’s always nice to you. You have a case of the warm fuzzies, even if they’re a little sad.

“Okay.”

“Thanks, brother.”

When he lifts his head from your knees and leans in to kiss you, you let him.

In the morning, everything will be different.

**Be Kanaya**

You lie awake to Rose trying to put you to sleep.

“…and your eyelids are falling shut. Your head feels heavy as your breathing slows and deepens—”

You sigh and sit up.

“I’m sorry, but it’s not working.”

Rose leans back against the pillows.

“Well. It was worth a try. I’m still only an amateur, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t really think it was because of you.”

She tangles her fingers with yours and kisses the back of your hand.

“Would it help you if I told you that everything is going to be alright?”

“Did you use your mystical abilities that I don’t understand to reach that conclusion?”

“No. My Sight isn’t really that simple. It’s just a thing you say when someone is worried about something.”

You swallow, brow furrowing.

“I don’t think it’s a thing that is true.”

“Perhaps not.”

You blink down at the purple duvet on Rose’s bed and lean against her shoulder.

“Please tell me again.”

Rose nuzzles her nose into your hair and puts her arm around you.

“Everything will be alright.”

You don’t mind letting her lie to you. In the morning, everything will be different.

 

**Be Dave**

You lie awake hearing clocks ticking in your head.

You went to bed before the news had stopped televising the Last Supper. Nothing better to do, and you got sick of watching that shit.

Your door opens a few hours later, and you pretend to be sleeping. Someone puts a hand on your forehead and brushes your bangs back from you face. You know it’s Bro by the calluses on his hands. You go on faking sleep, knowing he’d draw away if you opened your eyes.

You get this about once a year on the night before the Games. Your brother ( _father_ , your brain supplies, and you shut it down because that’s just too strange) is not demonstrative about affection. You can’t remember him ever hugging you.

So this is what you have, a touch on the head one night a year, and for now it’s good enough, and you feel wanted, and safe, and loved.

In the morning, everything will be different.

 

**Be Eridan**

You lie awake to Sollux shaking in your arms and Feferi cooing nonsense to him, her arm stretched over your shoulder to stroke his hair. You don’t know why you’re the one holding him. You’re not cut out for comfort. You’re even terrible at it with Fef.

Still, he’s kind of okay to hold, you guess, bony thing that he is. He’s so warm. It’s foreign to you, but in a nice way.

He keeps asking for Aradia. Like he’s forgotten she’s dead.

You’re not quite mean-spirited enough to remind him. Even if you were pitch for him (and you are, at least half the time), that would be a low blow. For tonight, it won’t kill you to be kind.

In the morning, everything will be different.

 

**Be Terezi**

You lie awake to Karkat reminiscing. He talks about past wriggling days and Twelfth Perigee’s Eves, and he doesn’t even get prickly when you tease him about being sentimental. He talks about how his lusus was miserable at helping him around the hive because his pincers just shredded everything.

“I had to ban him from helping with laundry,” he says, laughing and crying at the same time. “I couldn’t afford to buy any more clothes, and I’d run out of patches ages ago.”

You snort into his shirt.

He tells you how he met Gamzee and you tell him how you wound up as Gamzee’s kismesis.

“It was the face paint,” you say, and he cracks up. “And the clown religion. And the endless use of the word ‘motherfucker.’ And the everything.”

“Pfff.”

“And before we knew it we were just hurling insults back and forth online and things heated up pretty quick, especially when he got all, ‘The Mirthful Messiahs mock your precious law,’ and I got all, ‘I am the law, and the law is not mocked.’”

“ _Pfffffff_.”

“Pleased to know you find our passionate blackrom hilarious, Karcrab.”

“Yep.”

You lean your foreheads together.

“Can I be honest with you?”

“I sure as fuck hope so.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about you,” you admit. “It’s not that I don’t…think there’s something there, but at the same time—”

“It’s okay,” Karkat says, so softly it surprises you. “We’re only six. You don’t have to be passionately flushed for me.” He shrugs, smiles in a helpless sort of way. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d love that. But I just want you to be my friend.”

You blink very quickly, your throat tight.

“I am your friend.”

“I know.”

You do exactly what you want to do in that moment and kiss him. It’s not particularly passionate, but it feels good to do it because you wanted to and not because there are cameras pointed at you.

Karkat grins.

“Was that a friend-kiss?”

“It was a friend-who-happens-to-be-a-little-bit-my-flush-crush kiss. Shut up.”

“You could shut me up.”

You lean in like you’re going to kiss him again and then slap a hand over his mouth. He licks your palm. You make a noise of disgust and tackle him, rolling around on the floor like you’re wigglers again.

In the morning, everything will be different.      

 

**Be Kurloz**

You lie awake because you don’t really sleep anymore.

All the pieces are in place. Now you wait.

In the morning, everything will be different.

 

**Be Kankri**

You lie awake in a stranger’s arms because the Empress isn’t getting paid for you to sleep.

In the morning, nothing will be different.

 

**Dirk: Hate Your Job**

You always sleep badly the night before the Games. So does Roxy. When neither of you can stand lying in bed any longer, you get up and play videogames together until morning.

At seven a.m., you kiss Roxy on the cheek, wish her luck with her tributes, and head out.

You have a stop to make before you go get your own tributes.

You drive back to the hotel where you’d dropped Kankri late last night and flash your I.D. badge at the reception desk. They hand over a spare key to the room and let you pass through.

When you reach the room, he’s not waiting for you outside like usual. You tap on the door and get no answer. After two more knocks, you use the key card to let yourself in.

It’s one of the penthouse suites in a five-star Capitol hotel, so you knew to expect decadence. There are stray articles of clothing, dishes of half-eaten delicacies, and liquor bottles all over the living room, someone’s silk tie tossed over the Tiffany lampshade. You follow the path of destruction to the master bedroom.

You don’t have high hopes for a peaceful scene when you push the door open.

The client left Kankri tied to the bedframe, his hands suspended over his head. He’s limp in the restraints and semi-dressed, but not in what he was wearing when you left him. You go still when you see the jacket. You’ve seen it before. It’s the same style as the uniform from his Games session.

You make a wordless, angry sound and start untying his wrists. He flinches, but he doesn’t fight, or even come properly awake. His wrists are bloody between the bands of scar tissue he got in the Games, and his jacket is open, revealing cuts and punctures across his torso. The fresh marks are in specific locations, none of them deep enough to scar, but clearly meant to emulate the scars he already has.

It’s not the first time a client has done this, but it hasn’t gotten any less sick.

“Just hang in there for another minute and then we’re out of here, okay?”

“Do you…you promised…together…and you left me alone…”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left.”

“…all you ever wanted was to be with _him_ …you don’t care…you don’t care…”

You’re beginning to suspect he’s not talking to you. You focus on finishing untying the knots around his wrists.

“Almost done. Just stay with me, okay?”

He’s not staying with you. He’s blacking right the fuck out. You can’t say you really blame him.

You have to pick up Karkat and Terezi for prep in an hour. You’re going to make sure the Empress adds so many penalty fees to this bastard’s tab.

The ropes come free and Kankri’s arms drop. He slumps sideways, pitching dangerously close to the edge of the bed. You steady him, looking around for his clothes. When you can’t find them fast enough, you give up and wrap him in the bed sheets. The client can pay for those, too. You scoop your troll cocoon up in your arms.

“Come on, buddy. Let’s motor.”

“Put…me…down.”

Ah. Still Kankri in there, then. Good.

“Sorry, man. Don’t think you’re really in walking condition, and we’ve got to get going.”

You carry him out of the room and into the hall, watch his eyelids twitch a few times.

“I’m not a grub,” he says in a thin voice. “I wish you wouldn’t…I wish…”

“Me, too,” you say, and hit the down button for the elevator with your foot.

You take him out the back and pray for no reporters. For once, there aren’t any, likely too distracted by the start of the Games later in the day to bother tailing Kankri. He shivers all the way back to the Victors’ Suites.

You make good time up the stairs to his apartment, and at least he seems to be a little more aware by that point.

You start a bath running and set him on the bathroom counters.

“I can take care of myself,” he says, leaning his head back against the mirror. “You have somewhere else to be.”

“You can’t give yourself stitches.”

“I don’t need them.”

“Bullshit.”

You strip the bloodied sheets off him, but he hangs onto the jacket, batting at your hands when you pull on it. You finally lose patience.

“Kankri. Quit being a fucking baby and give me the damn jacket.”

“Let. Me. Be,” he hisses, and he sounds furious. You’re not a great mood, either.

“I haven’t got much time here, princess, so I need you to behave.”

You’re not expecting the shove. It makes you stumble back a few steps. Kankri slides down off the counters and gets his back up against the opposite wall.

“Do you think it does me any favors, having you fuss over me while I undergo repeated and frequent bouts of incapacitation? Because it doesn’t. It’s frustrating, and demeaning, and humiliating, and I wish that just once you would do as I ask—”

“And leave you alone so you can lick your wounds? That’s sort of the opposite of my job.”

Kankri bangs a fist against the wall.

“Damn your job!” he says, the words ringing with enough force to make you take another step back. You’ve never heard him swear, not once.

“I’m not a pet! If I voice an opinion on the state of my own well-being, I at least deserve the basic courtesy of having that opinion listened to!”

“I just want to help you.”

“Funny how ‘help’ can become so astonishingly degrading over time. I don’t want your _help_ ,” he spits. “You want to see me as this—this damsel, this fragile, fractured thing that you can piece back together if you do it _just so._ But in trying to be my caretaker, you place yourself in a position of authority over me. You rob me of my right to choose how and if I wish to be cared for, and in that, you make an object of me just as much as everyone else!”

You hold your jaw closed and wait for the sting of those words to fade. It doesn’t. So you’re just left looking at him, you with all the emotional intelligence of a dishrag, reeling for words because you aren’t used to being hurt by them.

“I’ll go,” you say at last. And then, “I have to—tributes. I have to go.”

You would give your sword arm not to hear the hiccupping noise he makes when you walk out of the room.

 

**Karkat: Ascend**

In the morning, Mr. Strider brings you to Porrim and Kanaya for one last change of clothes. Kanaya doesn’t bother trying to tame your hair, nor does she fuss over any detail of your appearance. She merely holds out a folded pile of clothes, grim-faced, and turns away while you put on your official Games uniform.

It’s practical, at least; loose cargo pants, combat boots, a lightweight cotton shirt, and a gray jacket full of pockets, all in neutral, non-flashy colors. No more fucking _red_.

Once you’ve changed, Kanaya takes your hands. Her eyes are wet. You start tearing up just looking at her face. She squeezes your hands until you think your bones will break.

“You are my very good friend,” she says at last, her voice wavering. “And I wish—I wish there was something—”

You cut her off with a hug.

It’s not much longer before Mr. Strider comes back to retrieve you. You feel an odd sense of relief that Kanaya and Porrim will be coming along to see you off.

When Terezi steps out into the hall, she looks strangely pale in her uniform, her skin washed out against the gray jacket. She’s pulled her hair back into a short ponytail to keep it out of her face. You take her hand and find that she’s trembling just as hard as you are. You’d always believed Terezi to be fearless. To learn otherwise is unsettling.

Mr. Strider and a cluster of Imperial guards see both of you blindfolded and herded into a helicopter to take you to the arena.

When you step outside, you’re steered underground before the blindfolds come off. Mr. Strider crouches down in front of you and puts a hand on each of your shoulders.

“Fight hard, guys.”

Terezi hugs him. You don’t have it in you to do the same. He ruffles your hair one more time, then Terezi’s, and then he’s walking away, and something about how quickly all of this is going frightens you. You thought it would take longer, or at least feel longer.

“Say your goodbyes now, if you’re going to say them,” Porrim tells you.

“No time,” says one of the guards. She takes Terezi’s arm. “Come on. This way, please.”

“Wait,” you say. Something frantic wakes in your chest and claws at your insides. “Wait. I’m not—I’m not ready, don’t take her—please don’t take her!”

The guards are trying to drag you in the opposite direction. Terezi looks over her shoulder at you, eyes too big in her face.

“ _Please_ don’t take her!”

Kanaya runs after you.

“Karkat—”

“No! No, go with her, please go with her, don’t let her be alone—”

“Karkat, I’m not going to leave—”

“ _Please_.”

Looking pained, she turns and follows Terezi’s guards around the corner.

Your guards bring you to a little concrete cell of a room. There are only two things inside: a single chair bolted to the floor and a circular platform surrounded by a glass tube with a sliding door. It’s large enough to fit a troll inside. Your stomach churns.

 “You have five minutes,” one of the guards tells you. “When you hear the announcement over the intercom, get on the platform.”

“Wait,” you whisper again, but he slams the door in your face. You hear a heavy lock slide into place outside.

You have to sit down on the floor and scream for a little while before you feel ready to cope with reality again.

You pace.

You aren’t expecting the door to open again, so you jump when it does.

You don’t see whoever comes in at first because they’re on you so fast. You hear a woman’s voice at the door, talking to the guards.

“Chill out, guys, I’m watching them. What do you even think he’s gonna do, share some magical game-breaking code?”

“You—stupid— _shit_!” someone lisps in your ear. “Did you really think you could just go out there without saying one fucking word to me?!”

You throw your arms around his waist and cling.

“Sollux—”

“Yeah, damn right it is! Fuck you, KK! Fuck you so much, you psychotic little bastard! Why’d you have to go and fucking volunteer, huh? So—pan-numbingly— _stupid_!”

You snuffle against his shoulder.

“Are we still friends?” you ask in a tiny voice.

Sollux crushes you against him. It’s too hot and it hurts.

“Fuck yes we are,” he says, his voice breaking.

There’s a popping sound overhead as the intercom switches on.

“All tributes, please step onto your platforms. Ascension will commence in thirty seconds.”

You can’t move.

“Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god I can’t—Sollux, I can’t do this, I can’t—”

“Shh. Yes, you can. Come on, KK. You’ve got this.”

“No—I don’t—I can’t—”

“…nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…”

Sollux pries you out of his arms and walks you backwards.

“Don’t give me that.”

“…eleven, ten, nine, eight…”

Your heels touch the platform, and you step back on impulse. Sollux holds the sliding door open and clasps your hand.

“Since when was there ever anything—”

“…three…”

“—that Karkat Vantas—”

“…two…”

“—couldn’t do?”

“…one.”

Sollux lets go of your hand. The glass door slides shut, and you ascend.

You’re lifted through complete darkness for a few seconds before you’re in the open again, your platform set in a ring with all the other tributes in some kind of concrete town square.

You can still hear the voice on the intercom, louder now than before.

“Attention all tributes: your session will commence at the sound of the starting gun. Do not move from your platform until the shot has sounded.”

There’s a pile of bags and weapons in the center of the square. Among them, you see the curved blades of an exquisite pair of sickles.

You’re not nearly that stupid.

“May the odds be ever in your favor.”

A shot cracks, loud enough to make your aurals ache.

The session has started.

You run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, that's it for part one! A short intermission is currently being reworked and will (hopefully) be up shortly, to be followed by part two. Cheers, lovelies!


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